


Awfully Human

by indridason



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Developing Relationship, Dissociation, Drug Abuse, Graphic Description, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Torture, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Slow Build, plot heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2018-04-24 15:08:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 48,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4924312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indridason/pseuds/indridason
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shizuo and Izaya are subjects at a human research facility. Shizuo struggles to survive, but Izaya seems to thrive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Failed the Test

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh Izaya doesn't thrive in this all that much either
> 
> //also, I have edited this chapter a tiny bit cause I've always disliked how it was written.
> 
> //////LOOK AT THIS COMIC MY BESTEST FRIEND IN THE WORLD ILLUSTRATED FOR MEEEE  
> [Here, please look and be amazed](http://sparkingtoaster.tumblr.com/post/141398206996/first-3-pages-of-the-illustrations-for)  
> She did the whole flippin chapter please go look and give it love <333333  
> Those four panels where Shizuo is trying to attack Izaya are literally my favorite thing, I die every time I see them because they're so funny and perfect <3

“Kida-kun, there’s always a guard in the front office, you know that,” Izaya chides the young blond, bored of the conversation he had just been dragged into. Kida responds with something about bathroom breaks but Izaya just picks at the loose threads on his chair's armrest. Kida has brought this conversation to him too many times to really pay much attention. 

Shinra passes by the long window that separates the room with a hallway, a tall man wearing the plain garments of experimental subjects trailing behind him. Izaya's lips twist upward when he recognizes the man. Now _this_ will be far more entertaining. Kida stops mid-sentence at Izaya's sudden change in expression. 

Izaya leaves Kida without a thought and hurries out of the room to catch up with Shinra and his presumably new charge. Shinra smiles as Izaya approaches, “Ah, Izaya, have you met Shizuo?”

Izaya skips to a stop in front of the Shizuo and smiles up at him. Really, that height difference is unfair. He remembers quite fondly all those fun times the monster had tried to murder him whenever they met in the cafeteria. “Of course I’ve met Shizu-chan. Is he yours now?”

Shizuo audibly grinds his teeth. That famous temper is clearly taking hold, which Izaya only finds more entertaining. “I told you to stop calling me that.”

Shinra laughs, completely unperturbed by the animosity now clouding the small space between the two. “He’s like Anri,” he says, “My father got tired of having to patch him up after experiments so he handed him off to me during down time.”

Izaya steps closer to Shizuo in order to examine the barely visible bandages underneath the sleeves of his shirt. He’s also testing how close he can get before the beast snaps. It hasn’t taken much in the past.

Sadly, showing surprising restraint, Shizuo takes a step back. His fists are shaking though, so Izaya knows he’s succeeding. “Leave me alone, ya damned flea.”

Letting out a chuckle, Izaya steps closer again. He catches Shinra shaking his head out of the corner or his eye, the doctor’s exasperation with his subject’s antics clear. “Why should I listen to a monster with brute strength?”

To Izaya’s delight, this finally cracks Shizuo’s control. He roars and launches himself at Izaya, who side steps out of the way. Shizuo swirls around to punch his opponent, but Izaya laughs, nearing manic, as he dodges Shizuo. “Silly beast! I know you like me oh so much, but I only love humans!”

“IZAYA!” Shizuo bellows, but is cut off by a beep of his collar before he can attempt another punch. The collar injects a sedative directly into his bloodstream and he can’t stop his momentum before it sends him face first to the floor. Izaya makes sure to file that image away for later enjoyment.

Shinra sighs, the remote to Shizuo’s collar in his hand. “Do you have to do that, Izaya?”

“Do what?” he asks innocently, but startles when a hand slaps around his ankle.

The beast is struggling to inflict some kind of harm to his target, still in the throes of his anger. His face contorts into a semblance of a smile. “Caught you, Flea.”

Before Shizuo can rip off his leg or something, Shinra thankfully presses the remote again. The second dose of sedative, which is already five times the usual amount, finally knocks the beast out.

“I know exactly how to punish you for this, Izaya,” Shinra says happily, humming as he signals a guard to drag Shizuo to the dorms.

~

Waking up is always a slow process for Shizuo, but it’s definitely exacerbated by the drugs. He blinks his eyes to bright light and a piece of board above his head. It takes a moment for him to settle into consciousness, so he takes stock of the state of his body. He’s so groggy from the drugs that it’s hard to even feel his limbs, but everything’s accounted for, even the pain in his upper arms that is still vaguely there. The drugs always make everything so… floaty.

“Ah! Is Shizu-chan awake?”

The high grating voice immediately floods anger through his brain. His hand grasps a metal pole and bends it before he can fully register what he’s doing.

“Hey! That’s my bed you’re deforming you know!” Izaya warns but doesn’t move closer. He’s sitting on the floor in front of the bed Shizuo’s in. “You really are a beast.”

Shizuo groans but manages to reign himself in. He lets go of the bed post that is now shaped like his knuckles. The drugs help mellow out his mood a bit, at least. His lethargic brain filters through fuzzy memories of trying to attack the flea and Shinra dosing him. He mulls over Izaya’s words.

“This is your bed?” he asks.

“No, the one above you is. I would have much preferred you as far away from me as possible, but, unfortunately, this is the only open bed in Shinra’s dorm.” Izaya’s eyes roam over Shizuo’s head, probably assessing the damage to his own bed.

Shizuo takes another moment to process this information. Shingen hadn’t given him much warning about a reassignment. Just handed him off to Shinra and waltzed away. At least he has an actual bed now. His old one had been more of a cubbyhole. He remembers Izaya’s presence when those unsettling maroon eyes dart back to him.

“Why were you watching me sleep?” he asks, sitting up slowly. He tests out his limbs one by one, trying to shake out the heaviness.

Izaya lets out an exaggerated groan. “Shinra told me I had to explain his rules to you because he’s too busy and he hates me.” He pouts for a bit but continues with a sigh when Shizuo only stares at him expectantly. “I’m assuming Shingen was your previous torturer because of the blue shirt, which also explains the blond hair. That one has a bit of a hang up. I think it has to do with his blonde wife.”

Shizuo catches a strand of hair in his eyes to examine it. He hadn’t really thought about why Shingen had bleached his hair. Just some kind of tactic to mark him as Shingen’s property, maybe. He also hadn’t noticed the color coded shirts, which brought him to the question of who Izaya belongs to, given his red shirt. Shingen had at least explained some time ago that his son was more of a doctor than a scientist, and was only around to heal the other scientists subjects.

The flea continues before he has time to ask, though. “Shinra’s pretty different from Shingen, or any of the other scientists really. You’re allowed anywhere in his section without supervision aside from the procedure rooms and his office. There’s a rec room with a small library and some games, board and video. This is Shinra’s only dorm, I’ll show you the showers later, and you know the cafeteria, obviously. I think that’s it?” he pauses for a moment to consider, then tacks on, “Shingen will come by whenever he feels like it for experiments, and Shinra then can patch up your monstrous flesh afterword!”

A growl escapes from Shizuo’s throat, but he decides to stretch out his arms in order to distract himself from the anger. Being drugged again really doesn’t seem like a great idea. Even if there’s no one around at the moment, there’s security cameras and guards everywhere. He knows from experience that his collar can be activated remotely. The stretching feels nice, even though his muscles are still sore. Shingen had made him lift some weights that morning, but after a certain weight his arms had started to tear themselves apart.

A young girl with black hair quietly enters the room. She barely glances at Shizuo and Izaya before slipping into a bed on the other side of the room without a word. Shizuo notes that she has a red shirt.

“Be careful of that one, she can control minds to some extent,” Izaya informs him. He watches the brunette girl for a moment longer, remembering how he had been about her age when he was taken here. He glances back to the flea, who has that irritating grin on his stupid face. This is the most helpful he’s ever been, weirdly enough. Shizuo has far too many memories of Izaya goading him into attempted violence whenever they met in the cafeteria or some group experiment. “Her name’s Anri. She’s like you, a success. Shinra mostly gets put in charge of failures that still have some potential. I’m sure you know what happens to experiments that are damaged beyond repair.” He actually doesn't, but doesn't want to ask. “She doesn’t like me much.”

“I doubt anyone likes you much,” Shizuo mutters. “Why am I stuck with Shinra if I’m a success then?” The thought of being a “success” kind of pissed him off for some reason. Maybe the concept of a person being considered a failure sat wrong with him.

“You don’t know?” Izaya mock gasps, shaking his head. “Your experiments harm you too much. Even if Shingen managed to achieve what he set out to do, for example your beastly strength, which is what makes you a success, you have too many injuries because of it. So Shinra is in charge of healing you up for more tests. Technically you are now under his charge, even though you’re still considered Shingen’s subject.”

Shizuo hates that _subject_ is interchangeable with _property_. “Are you a failure then?”

Izaya merely tsks at him and smiles. “Could you fix my bed?”


	2. Settling In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to my lovely beta, guuzenkamo :) If you haven't seen her work yet, check it out! She's an amazing writer.

This morning’s experiment has left Izaya with a headache, so he goes to Shinra’s office to complain. After, of course, leaving Shizuo alone in his new bunk to ponder life or whatever his empty brain is capable of contemplating. 

“What did Kujiragi do to you this morning?” Shinra asks, even though he’s already searching through the logs on his computer to check for this exact information.

Izaya responds with a noncommittal grunt. “Just some drug trials.” He is currently sprawled across the slightly uncomfortable plush chair in front of Shinra’s desk. The simple fact that Izaya is in Shinra’s office by his own choice hints that Shinra is rather different from the other scientists employed by Shingen. Also the fact that Izaya isn’t being reprimanded for misusing his chair, and that he can talk back all he wants, among a multitude of other oddities. The other test subjects want to be under Shinra’s charge, even if it means being in danger of the ‘true failure’ label. They all think he’s kind, maybe even compassionate, but Izaya knows better. Shinra is actually extremely apathetic, but wants his beloved headless woman to think him kind, even if she is unaware of most of his activities here in his father’s lab.

After making sure that pain medication wouldn’t interact with whatever Kujiragi had given him this morning, Shinra hands Izaya two white pills with little red dots all over them. Izaya dry swallows them without hesitation. If Shinra wanted to dose him with something weird, he definitely wouldn’t need to be sneaky about it.

Settling back into the chair, draping his legs off one of the arm rests even though it’s uncomfortable, Izaya sighs. Twenty minutes to wait for the drugs to kick in is far too long to suffer through. His aching head wanders back to the dumb blond who is probably trying to figure out where the bathroom is. He had intentionally been quite vague in his explanation of Shinra’s labs. Which brought him to another annoyance. “Shinra’s so mean for making me babysit Shizu-chan,” Izaya whines, his headache keeping his voice from going as high as he would like.

“Then don’t prod him into attacking you,” Shinra says without pity. “You know, he could easily kill you, with that crazy strength.”

“But teasing him is so much fun~” Izaya says. Shinra will never understand that the danger is _why_ he likes it so much. That rush of adrenaline when those monstrous hands slip past his skin by just a breath. Shizu-chan is more than capable of killing him, but Izaya will never let him. He feels so alive when he knows he has complete control over his own death.

Shinra sighs loudly, reclaiming Izaya’s attention. “I thought you weren’t interested in those you deemed to be not human?”

Izaya groans, draping his head and arms across Shinra’s desk as dramatically as he can. The pain medication hasn’t kicked in yet, probably because it’s only been a few minutes, but Izaya loses all patience when he’s in pain. “I’m not! I just want to show Shizu-chan the truth of his being, because he hates being a monster.” Izaya grins crookedly up at Shinra as he purposefully messes with some important looking documents on his desk.

Shinra snatches his papers out of Izaya’s grabby hands. “Don’t you have someone else to annoy? Like Shizuo. Go bother him. I gave you your pills.” Shinra is momentarily distracted by his phone beeping, and he checks it. His entire countenance changes, somehow reminding Izaya of blobs. That sudden grin is rather melty- looking. “Oh, isn’t it dinner time? You don’t want to miss it today! Out, out!” His tone is suddenly back to chipper, rather than exasperated. Izaya has learned that these are basically Shinra’s two main states, and his blob state is reserved for Celty.

Before Shinra can successfully eject Izaya from his office, though, Celty steps in. He stops trying to physically drag Izaya from the chair—quite fruitlessly, by the way—and skips over to the women dressed in black leather. She has her yellow and blue helmet on, though a bit of smoke sneaks out from under it at the sight of Shinra.

Izaya stands, smile flashing bright, perfect teeth. “Greetings. Haven’t seen you in a while, Celty.”

Celty pulls out her phone and takes a second to type. _Ah, hello, Izaya._

“Out, out, out!” Shinra finally manages to shove Izaya out the door and slams it in his face. Izaya just chuckles and turns to make his way to the cafeteria. Shinra’s never called the guards on him before, no matter how uncooperative he gets. He’s curious to find if he can actually do something that’ll make Shinra snap.

Seeing Celty puts him in a good mood, because she reminds him of how unkind Shinra really is. Shinra is desperate for Celty to see him as a good person, so he hasn’t told his beloved about what exactly he does for his father. Shinra keeps her from meeting any of the test subjects, but Izaya wormed his way into Shinra’s office when she was there once. Shinra told her that Izaya was there of his own free will, and Izaya played along.

The pain medication is finally kicking in. Izaya saunters down the hallways to dinner, excited to people watch while all the subjects are crammed in one room.

~

Shizuo grunts in greeting to Vorona as she sits next to him. Tom is already seated across from him, face alight with concern. “I heard you got transferred to Shinra? Did something go wrong with your experiments?”

“No,” Shizuo says, munching absentmindedly on something that the cafeteria workers call steak but definitely isn’t. “I guess Shingen just got tired of patching up my broken bones from all the weight lifting.”

Tom breathes a sigh of relief. “Good. You’re lucky to get Shinra, everyone wants him. How is it so far?”

He mentally goes over all the things he’s learned today. He finally understands why Vorona has a blue shirt like him, and why Tom’s is green, signifying Namie’s ownership. He still doesn’t know what red means.

“Weird,” he finally answers, “I’m not used to being around people.” Aside from meal times. Shingen had kept him in solitary mostly; he hadn’t even seen much of Vorona, even though she’s also under Shingen. Earlier he had been searching for the bathroom, and was able to ask a small blonde kid where it was, which was a novelty in itself. Come to think of it, that kid also had a blue shirt. There are a surprising amount of Shingen’s subjects that he hasn’t even met, apparently. “There’s a rec room.”

The thought of who gave him that particular information hits him, which immediately sours his mood. “I’m stuck sharing a bunk with that damn flea bastard.” He bends the fork in his hand before he even realizes he’s angry.

Tom gestures placatingly with both hands. “Careful, Shizuo.”

“Please calm yourself, Shizuo-senpai. Being sedated twice in one day is not recommended,” Vorona adds in her robotic voice, which somehow comes across as concerned.

Shizuo breathes through his mouth, feeling the hot anger slowly leave his veins. He’s thankful yet again for having these two as friends; they’ve kept him under control a countless number of times. “How do you know I’ve already been dosed today?” he asks.

“The rumor mill is a powerful force, especially in prison-like circumstances which we presently reside in,” Vorona supplies helpfully. “You are now in a population that is of great interest to many here. You will be scrutinized far more heavily than when you were in solitary.”

Shizuo often has no idea how to interpret what Vorona says, because of the bizarre way that she talks, but this time he believes he understands the gist of it. It also doesn't make him feel any better.

Speaking of the flea bastard, Shizuo catches sight of him in the corner of the room. He’s in his usual spot, completely alone at a table. He seems pretty content with his isolated meal, those fidgety eyes watching the room intently. He focuses on various occupants until the same blond kid who had showed Shizuo the bathroom approaches the table. They converse and Shizuo turns away, disgusted that anyone would talk to someone so slimy willingly.

“Well, at least you’re in a much better situation now that you’re under Shinra. Right?” Tom says, attempting to diffuse the yet again tense air.

Shizuo frowns, not sure about his answer but wanting to assure Tom. “Right.”


	3. Not Quite Painless

Kujiragi pulls the needle out of his arm. Izaya is unhappy to find that track marks are starting to develop on his skin from all the injections. At least his hair covers the scars along his scalp. He shouldn’t be so concerned with his appearance, most of the other subjects have prominent track marks, but an unblemished façade is important in order to look powerful.

“I want you in an observation room today,” Kujiragi says, monotone, as she writes neatly on a clipboard. Her brown hair is pulled up in the usual messy ponytail, her suit the usual bright yellow. Strange that she chose red for her subjects with how much she seems to like yellow.

Izaya frowns. An observation room means hours of boredom. It’s such a nuisance how much Kujiragi has been calling on him lately. She used to go months without signaling Shinra to send Izaya her way for more experiments. Now it’s practically every other day. She must have some new plan for him, even though her first attempt failed.

“Fine, fine,” Izaya says. The drugs she just forced into his bloodstream are making him feel light and weird, so he decides to not argue with her. He hops off the examination table, but his legs buckle underneath him. Kujiragi makes no move to help him, simply scratches calmly away at her clipboard.

Izaya pulls himself off the floor, struggling to get his limbs under control. “Do you need a wheelchair?” Kujiragi asks, untroubled.

“No, just a moment,” Izaya says. Ah, the cruelty of humans. Or rather, apathy. Kujiragi has never been outright malicious. A hint of anger from her treatment of his person creeps up around the edges of his mind, and he crushes it. He’d much prefer to observe her behavior from a distance, but he begrudgingly accepts that he can’t let personal injuries cloud his love for her humanity.

The light, cold feeling slowly unclenches from his muscles, and he’s able to walk without assistance out of Kujiragi’s labs. He heads straight for Shinra’s office but Mikado intercepts him.

“Mikado-kun, what a lovely surprise.” Izaya flashes him a winning smile, to which Mikado smiles timidly back. His softer smile that he reserves for the young brunet takes a bit more effort than usual, with a growing pressure assaulting his head.

“Hello, how are you, Izaya-san?” Mikado asks, always the epitome of politeness. It’s usually endearing, but right now it’s rather annoying. Izaya really just wants to lie down.

“Fine, how can I help you, Mikado-kun?” He’d usually enjoy exchanging pleasantries for an exceedingly obnoxious amount of time, but he cuts right to the point.

Mikado twists his hands together nervously. “Kida-kun’s been talking to you a lot lately. I just don’t want him to get in trouble. I’m anxious that he’s going to try something stupid.”

The satisfaction Izaya gets from Mikado’s worries is enough to lighten his bad mood a bit. “I’ll make sure to keep Kida-kun out of trouble.” He walks away from Mikado before the kid can continue the conversation. A familiar suffocating feeling forces him to cut his fun short. He’s never had an episode in front of anyone besides Shinra before, and he would like to keep it that way.

His head is concerningly fuzzy by the time he reaches Shinra’s office. The bastard better be in there. He knocks impatiently on the door several times and finally the annoying man in a lab coat answers. “Alright, alright, Izaya. You’re rather excited to be stuck in an observation room.”

“I have a headache. Can you give me some pills before you lock me in a box?” Izaya asks. It’s far more than a simple headache, but also too much to explain.

Shinra sighs at him. “You know I can’t give you anything. It defeats the whole purpose of an observation room.”

“Kujiragi doesn’t have to know~” Izaya whines. The doctor shakes his head and gestures Izaya down the hall, towards the procedure section. Izaya complies with a ruffled grumble, deciding that his skin is becoming too sensitive to delay the inevitable anymore. At least he can lie down and try to block out the world in the observation room.

When Shinra opens the door to the room, at the first sight of blond hair, Izaya has the strong impulse to spin on his heel and speed walk in the other direction. Instead he stops right outside the door and is too startled to control the high pitch his voice takes on. “You’re locking me in a steel box with _Shizu-chan?!_ ”

“Yes,” Shinra says with that malicious smile. “Rest assured, Shizuo’s arms are too damaged to strangle you right now. You’ll be fine.” He gently pushes Izaya inside the room with a bit too much enthusiasm.

“This is cruel and unusual punishment!” Izaya hisses at the closing door. The lock clicks with the finality of certain death. He turns to confront what is likely an enraged beast about to break all his bones, but Shizuo is just sitting on a cot, impassively watching him. His arms are indeed heavily bandaged. One is even in a brace.

The placid reaction catches him off guard, and he suddenly feels like he overreacted. Impossible. Even with his arms out of commission, Shizuo is a monster capable of great violence. Izaya has every reason to want to stay as far away as possible. He’s been forced to share a bunk with a creature that can kill him with the twitch of a muscle, and now he has to share a tiny box with him for an unknown length of time. And he’s too fatigued to even tease him!

He audibly grumbles and flops down on the second cot, which is placed just a couple feet from Shizuo’s. Observation rooms are small and completely blank save for two cots and a toilet, one wall completely glass and the rest obnoxiously white. The glass wall features a lovely view into the hallway and another observation room, currently unoccupied.

Izaya’s skin is buzzing. At this rate, he’ll have an attack in front of Shizuo. He curls into the cot, only vaguely comfortable because of how unpleasant his body feels. The excessively thin sheet feels as though it scrapes along his flesh and the air he breathes feels too thick. Shizuo’s presence definitely doesn’t help. Those honey eyes roving over his vulnerable state has his skin crawling.

“You call me a monster, but you’ve been experimented on too,” Shizuo says, still with that passive expression. It’s so much more fun when he’s angry, but it’s probably for the best given the close quarters.

“That bothers you huh, Shizu-chan?” Izaya hums, masking his discomfort with a pleasant smile. “No human can bend metal like it’s melting plastic.”

Shizuo grunts. Izaya can’t tell if it’s a complaint or an acknowledgement. “What have they done to you?” the blond asks.

Innumerous needles, knives, digging into his flesh and the soft pink of his brain matter. Endless hours of struggling to breathe and not scratch the skin from his bones. “Drug trials, mostly,” He answers. “I don’t have any monstrous qualities like you.”

Shizuo lies down on his cot, gives a half-hearted snort. “You definitely aren’t human. I bet they turned you into a flea.”

The statement is so nonsensical that Izaya can’t help the startled laugh that escapes his mouth. He cuts it off quickly to keep any movement to a minimum, as the slightest motion against his skin is so sensitive it almost hurts.

They lapse into silence, Shizuo perfectly calm on his cot and Izaya struggling to keep his breathing under control. Something sets off his stomach without warning and he barely makes it in time to empty his stomach into the toilet. His meager breakfast of toast and an egg roll is gone too soon and he’s left dry heaving.

The blond beast is sitting up now, watching him wipe off his mouth with the sleeve of his scarlet shirt. “You okay?” He could almost sound worried.

Izaya decides to not answer. “Common side effect.” He doesn’t think he could hate Shizuo anymore than he does in this moment. That damn _success_ with his strength and his easy injuries. Some spilled blood and strained muscles is nothing compared to fearing that you might lose your mind, or possibly already have because of sharp metal points scrambling thoughts and feelings and small pills with too large consequences.

Shingen inexplicably uses this weak moment to strut in front of the glass wall of their shared box that is so much worse than a jail cell. Shinra is with him, a small frown on his face.

The gas mask Izaya has never seen off of Shingen’s face is as inscrutable as ever. He turns to Shinra, treating the two in the room like a beaker of interesting contents. “I know you’ve just acquired 694, but I’d like to see 311’s progress. Put them in a trial together.”

Shit.


	4. Needles and Knives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter title was actually going to be the fic title for a bit, but I changed my mind at the last minute. But this chapter was one of the first scenes I had in my head, so I thought this title would fit the chapter ^.^ Angst ahoy!

The flea really doesn’t look too good. His skin is pallid and sweaty, and he just threw his breakfast up. He doesn’t seem to be able to quite muster that condescending smirk either. He follows Shinra out of the observation room on shaky legs, with a tired, hateful glance at Shizuo.

The doctor gestures for Shizuo to follow as well, and he complies with some apprehension. He trails behind the two, quietly watching Shinra fuss over Izaya’s current weak state. Izaya smacks Shinra’s hand away when the doctor tries to check his temperature.

The only time Shizuo has been paired with other people for experiments was for simulated fights, so he knows what Shingen meant when he said to put Izaya and him in a trial. He’s had these mock battles with a few other test subjects before, most notably Vorona and Izaya. His fight with Vorona was the first time they had met, and even though she had lost, she seemed to enjoy it so much that she started sitting with him and Tom during meal times.

His first fight with Izaya was horrible. The damn flea just ran from him the whole time, tossing insults and smirks at him over his shoulder. Shizuo had ended up smashing so many walls that the scientists overseeing the experiment sedated him, which had declared the match a draw. He has no idea what the point of winning or losing the fights is, but he hasn’t lost one since Shingen declared his strength a success. The other subjects don’t seem to care at all about the results, even though the researchers do.

When the trio reaches the arena space, Shingen is waiting for them at one of the entrances. Shinra leads Izaya away to a different entrance, and Shizuo unhappily stays with Shingen. He wouldn’t go as far to say that he hates or fears Shingen, but there are far too many memories of the painful things that the scientist in a gas mask has done to him.

“I expect good results from this test, 694,” Shingen says, clapping his gloved hands together. To him, none of the subjects have names, just numbers. The weird, oscillating way he talks grates on Shizuo’s nerves. “Just don’t break any walls this time.”

Shizuo grunts noncommittally. He doesn’t want to be drugged again, but he really doesn’t have much control over what he destroys when he’s in a rage.

“There’s just the one target. You know the rules; just immobilize him, no permanent damage, which includes death! Have fun~” Shingen says, opening the door and ushering Shizuo through.

He steps into the arena, which is an immense room, this time structured like a maze, similar to his previous fight with Izaya. Shizuo can’t say he’s not excited. This is the only time he’s allowed, even _encouraged_ , to attack the annoying bastard that always makes life far more difficult than it needs to be.

The maze is composed of walls of differing colors, and Shizuo picks his route at random, starting with the green section of walls for no particular reason. He’s struck by a memory of his first fight with Izaya. The flea had delighted in explaining how this experiment tested multiple things: stamina, problem solving, ability to track and defeat an opponent, other things he couldn’t remember, and above all, intelligence. The mockery Izaya then hurled at him that day sets a heat in his gut now. His brain focuses in on catching his prey, imagining his hands around Izaya’s pale throat, cutting off the outflow of treacherous lies. He moves faster, planning to just wander until he stumbles upon the parasite. He’s got more than enough endurance to last longer than Izaya in a game of hide and seek.

Eventually he sees a flash of red fabric around a corner. Izaya’s still too fast, so he has to follow the small blurs of red twisting past walls and hallways. The fact that he can never seem to get closer just infuriates him more. He rounds a corner, and he’s suddenly got full view of Izaya, his back pressed to a wall, chest heaving. He realizes that Izaya is trapped; he has inadvertently lead Shizuo into a dead end. The walls in this section of the maze are excessively red, the same color of Izaya’s shirt and eyes.

Against all odds, Izaya crumples into a ball, and it’s like someone pours a bucket of ice water down Shizuo’s back. He stands there dumbfounded, staring at the small shivering body before him. He abruptly remembers Izaya puking into the toilet in the observation room, how he couldn’t even muster his characteristic smile. He’s never seen him without that smile before, never seen this weakness in his enemy.

Hurting Izaya now wouldn’t be retribution, just revenge. He’s not going to hurt another human being, especially an injured one, just so the damn vultures watching behind their cameras with their needles and knives can sate their ~~curiosity~~ bloodlust with black ink on paper.

He takes a step back from Izaya, plans formulating to go rampage through the walls instead of this damaged result of human cruelty. A harsh, low laugh stops him as Izaya uses the wall to pull himself to his feet. Ruby eyes glare at him through dark hair, breathless laughter slips past chapped lips. “You fell for that huh, Shizu-chan?” Izaya laughs again, growing louder and more manic, and the walls are so red that Izaya almost melts into them. “A compassionate monster really is too ludicrous for words.”

The small man’s body still trembles, too much pain in his eyes to be fake. “I’m not going to hurt you, Izaya.”

Izaya just grins, that upturn of lips that genuinely displays his true sadistic intentions. “I heard you had a little brother before you got taken here.”

Shizuo’s breathing stops without his will. Something sparks through his ligaments and he moves closer to Izaya. “What did you say?” The words spill from his mouth without the full intention to speak.

“I know where he is; maybe I should let Shiki know?” Izaya says, stepping away from the wall, closer to Shizuo. “Even with those two in the cafeteria, you’re so lonely here, aren’t you? A family reunion would cheer you right up.”

“Don’t you fucking _dare!_ ” Shizuo nearly screams, his mind blanking with red, joining into the angry scarlet environment he’s perilously surrounded by. He reaches for the source of his uncontrollable hatred, completely ignoring the sharp pain in his still damaged arms, snatching the hand that Izaya raises to protect himself and slams the small body into the wall. He pulls Izaya up the wall by his arm, the brunet hissing in pain when his full weight drags at the muscles in his wrist. His free hand wraps around Izaya’s slender neck, and a small part of him is surprised at how brittle Izaya’s life feels under his hand.

A warning beeps around his own neck, from the silver band that threatens with sedatives. Shinra’s voice, almost panicky, sounds through the speakers in the room. “Shizuo, please stop or I’ll have to sedate you.”

Shizuo breathes heavily, trying to reign his rampant emotions in before he even attempts to relax the muscles in his fingers. Izaya chokes out a whimper, clawing at the hand at his throat.

“Shizuo, let go of Izaya,” Shinra tries again. Guards filter into the small space behind Shizuo, aiming guns loaded with sedative darts at him. The threat finally scrapes through the fog in his brain, and he releases Izaya, who tumbles to the ground, gasping for air. Shizuo quickly steps back, allowing the guards to lead him away from the man he just almost strangled to death.

Shingen must have stolen the mic from Shinra, because his joyful voice filters through the room. “That’s a win for 694, congrats!”


	5. Exchanging Particulars

Shizuo doesn’t see Izaya again until the next morning, in the showers.

The guards had dropped him off at his dorm. He expected some form of punishment, but none came. Shingen’s elated voice announcing his win echoed through his head as he anxiously waited for Izaya to show up at his bunk in order to sleep. But he never did, and Shizuo barely slept. Even if Izaya goaded him on, he still lost his control and hurt the man, right after he had promised to not harm him, even. It was even worse that Izaya had been in no position to fight back, and Shizuo was fully aware of that. He feels like a pawn of the scientists, and he can only see Izaya as another victim of their disregard for human life.

He shuffles, bleary eyed, into the bathrooms which double as showers. He is used to having an assigned time to bathe, but with Shinra he can whenever he wants, as long as it doesn’t interfere with any experiments. He’s still finding all the small freedoms that come with being under Shinra’s care hard to adjust to.

He has found that these bathrooms are used by subjects under both Shinra and Namie, so he could potentially run into Tom one of these days. They’re also gender neutral, so he’s unsurprised to see the black haired girl Izaya had warned about in one of the open showers. Privacy is really a foreign concept among the test subjects.

He is, however, surprised to find Izaya sitting on one of the benches, struggling to take his shirt off. The wrist that Shizuo had dragged up a wall is in a brace, which is making it difficult for Izaya to slip his arm through his shirt sleeve. Izaya catches sight of Shizuo and when he looks up, Shizuo has to smother a flinch at the dark purple bruises coloring the brunet’s throat. Shizuo swallows his revulsion at his own violence then approaches the flea.

Izaya just glares at him, not moving. Shizuo has to take a moment to gather courage to ask a question he’s not sure he wants to know the answer to. “I broke your wrist?”

Izaya clicks his tongue, no sign of that frantic laughter from yesterday, none of the desperation and pain in his voice. “No, just sprained,” he says. Completely back to normal, like Shizuo hadn’t left black and purple on his skin and ripped the muscles in his arm.

He turns back to struggling with his clothing, and Shizuo kneels in front of him, very carefully taking his arm and helping him out of the shirt. He makes sure to be as gentle as possible, using feather light touches to ask for permission to continue. This is his fault, so he simply has to do whatever he can to fix it, or at least help with Izaya’s injuries. With his shirt off, the bruises on his neck look much worse, and Shizuo has to focus on looking elsewhere.

Izaya doesn’t stop him, just watches with a small, if surprised, frown. Shizuo’s never seen such an unguarded expression on his enemy’s face, so novel that his fingers linger on the smooth skin of Izaya’s injured arm. Shizuo can sense a hesitation in Izaya, another unfamiliar thing, and Shizuo knows that he’s learning something about Izaya that nobody else has seen, though he can’t quite understand what it is or what it means.

Izaya moves away from his touch, smile back, and the moment passes, leaving Shizuo lost in his confusion over what he just saw in Izaya. His scattered mind fights to say something that’ll bring him out of his muddle. He stands, running his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry for spraining your wrist.”

“Mmm, it’s actually a good thing,” Izaya says, seeming to be thinking it over. “Shinra can get Kujiragi to leave me alone for a bit now, with the excuse that I need to heal up.”

“Kujiragi?” Shizuo asks. The name seems familiar, for some reason, but he can’t place it.

“My torturer. The woman that always wears yellow.”

Kujiragi is the reason for Izaya’s weakened state yesterday, then. He matches the lady he’s occasionally seen in a yellow outfit with the name Kujiragi so that he can commit it to memory.

“Why didn’t you sleep in the dorms last night?” he asks, because he’s still stuck in that heavy, sleepy state from waiting up all night for Izaya to come back.

“Shinra was afraid you’d try to murder me,” Izaya says happily, standing up. He looks up at Shizuo through his lashes, the upturn of his lips and eyebrows purposefully seductive. “I can get the pants myself.”

Shizuo feels heat rise to his face, and he looks away, too tired and confused to even think of being mad about the teasing. He steps aside to take off his own clothing. He doesn’t say anything else to Izaya for the rest of his shower session, but he keeps an eye on Izaya to make sure he doesn’t have any more difficulty with his wrist. He does also notice that the flea uses a shampoo and conditioner that is not the standard provided for the subjects, and he assumes that Shinra gave it to him.

~

Izaya feels much better after his shower, fresher, and he skips his way to a short hallway that is very seldom used. He leans against a wall, ready to wait, because he’s always early. 

He’d like to forget about what happened yesterday, but his useless wrist and bruised throat are a constant reminder. Shizuo had surprised him, had stepped away from his cornered target, the exact opposite of what he had expected. The damn monster keeps proving he actually thinks about things every once in awhile, and it infuriates Izaya. At least he has control over the beast again, that strange regret in Shizuo’s expression a point for Izaya to manipulate. 

He had told the blond beast that Shinra had kept him away because he was afraid for Izaya’s safety. This was true, but he had also asked Shinra to just put him in an observation room for the night. It was easier to deal with the IV Shinra had set him up with-- Kujiragi’s damn drugs had left him dehydrated-- and he needed time away from Shizu-chan to properly order his thoughts. 

He pushes the angry feeling away, his face slipping into a pleasant smile, when a man in a guard uniform approaches him. “Hello, Shiki-san.”

Shiki dips his head in greeting, “Informant-san.” He hands Izaya a paper bag, who roots through it immediately.

He pulls out an apple, grinning. “How considerate~” He says, fumbling with the bag and his sprained wrist so that he can chomp into the lovely red fruit. The rich flavor is so wonderful after all the bland food in the cafeteria. There’s also his requested items in the bag; unscented lotion, ear buds, cigarettes, gum, a small screwdriver, and an SD card. He picks out the tiny card, examining it closely. “Hmm, I wonder what kind of music Shiki-san put on here?”

Shiki has an almost private smile, which Izaya quite enjoys. The music will certainly be interesting, then. Izaya takes a note out of his sleeve, which has lists of all the drugs that he and various other test subjects had been given recently, and hands it to Shiki. “This wasn’t easy to get you know,” He says, mostly to irritate the guard, and takes another delicious bite of his apple.

“I know. I’m also risking my position to sneak contraband to you. It’s a nice deal we have, isn’t it?” Shiki responds with a knowing smirk. He’s learned very well how to handle Izaya’s difficult personality.

“I am quite interested in why the Awakusu-Kai is investigating this facility,” Izaya says, delicately sorting his new items back into the paper bag.

“Why? Do you want us to shut it down?” Shiki’s eyes wander down to Izaya’s damaged neck. “Or are you having too much fun?”

Izaya responds with a chuckle, throwing a wave over his shoulder as he retreats down the hall.


	6. Amity

The next day, Shingen doesn’t call him for any experiments, so Shizuo stays in his bed for most of the morning. He only leaves for a bathroom break and meal times, which Shizuo notes that the flea sleeps through. Izaya had shown up at their bunk right before lights out, looking exhausted. He had crawled up to his top bunk and promptly fell asleep without a word to Shizuo.

Shizuo returns from lunch, and the parasite is still fast asleep. He calculates that Izaya’s been asleep for nearly fourteen straight hours, and that’s really just unreasonable. He starts to worry that maybe the flea has a fever or is sick from complications of his injuries or some drug that yellow scientist has given him—Kujiragi? Yeah. He tells himself that he doesn’t care, that he should even be happy over the possibility of the bastard being miserable. The guilt he feels over the dark colors in the shape of his own fingers adorning Izaya’s throat, however, pushes him to look over the railing of the top bunk.

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Izaya look so… human. Curled up in the thin sheets, face half buried in his pillow, a faint frown upon his slightly parted lips. It’s hard to match this almost tranquil expression to the wild look he had while taunting Shizuo back in the arena.

He doesn’t look feverish, but sometimes it can be hard to tell. Plus Izaya is definitely past the point where sleep is restful, so he says loudly, “Oi, Flea. It’s almost past lunch time. Shouldn’t you eat?”

Izaya makes a small noise and blinks up at Shizuo, movements slow and heavy as he uses his good arm to sit himself up. The bruises on his neck look slightly better, but not much.

“Lunch?” he asks sleepily, eyes half-lidded. Shizuo notices that the flea has ear buds on, which are attached to a device clutched in his hand, a device which looks suspiciously like a cellphone. What the hell? Did Shinra really have that much of a soft spot for Izaya that he’d give him something like that?

“Yes, lunch. It’s almost over,” Shizuo says, frowning.

“Not hungry,” Izaya says after a moment, seeming to still be trying to get his bearings. He rubs at his droopy eyes and Shizuo finds it weird to see his enemy like this. To see the flea acting so… docile.

“Why do you have ear buds?” He asks, partially because he’s uncomfortable with seeing Izaya like this and also because he’s never seen someone with items that subjects are not allowed to have.

The question seems to remind Izaya that he does indeed have ear buds in, and he takes them out. He stares at his device distastefully, the first real expression on his face since he woke up. “Got them in a trade. It’s entirely filled with Swedish folk songs and Russian war anthems though.”

A trade involving Izaya and outlawed objects sounds way too sketchy for Shizuo, so he decides that he doesn’t want to know anymore. He sits back down on his bed, satisfied that Izaya is not sick, or at least not dangerously so. Seriously, who sleeps for fourteen hours? He curses his guilty conscience for making him worry over someone so loathsome.

“Why do you care, anyway?” Izaya calls from the top bunk. He’s much more awake now, but there’s still a tired note to his voice. 

Shizuo growls, not about to admit how much he hates his own violent actions. “I’ve been here all morning, I’m tired of your stench.”

Izaya climbs down from his bed and shoots Shizuo an incredulous look. “Excuse you, I smell lovely,” he says with an annoying smile. “Are you really that pathetic that you just sat in bed all morning?”

“That’s exactly what you did!” Shizuo bristles. He makes sure to keep his hands away from the bed posts so that he doesn’t accidentally deform their bunk yet again.

“I was occupied. With sleep. Besides, there’s a rec room, remember?” The damn bastard pauses just so he can tsk at Shizuo. “Sorry, I forgot that a protozoan must have horrible working memory skills.”

Shizuo snatches his pillow and throws it at the flea, who laughs as he bolts out of the room. After he calms down, he realizes that it was really a great feat of self control for him to throw the pillow and not the entire bunk, and for that, he’s proud of himself.

~

Shizuo goes back to his bed, but after a while, staring at the board above his head just isn’t as stimulating as it was a couple hours ago. Now that Izaya is gone and there’s absolutely no other presence in the room, an itch travels through his limbs, demanding that he do _something_ , _anything_ with himself. This is exactly what he did with his time back with Shingen, but for some reason, the solitude is leaving him empty. Maybe being around other people has ruined him.

He rolls over, clenching and unclenching his teeth, but the nagging feeling only clutches tighter. He stands up almost violently with a growl and strides quickly out of the room. It’s like he’s lost a nonexistent fight with Izaya; finally giving up and going to the rec room like the parasite had suggested.

The three kids that are also under Shinra are in there, huddled around the TV, playing some cartoonish racing game. This is the first time he’s seen any kind of expression on the girl’s face—Anri, he recalls her name. She smiles and laughs lightly at the antics of the two other boys. It’s a nice bit of joy and friendship that Shizuo hasn’t seen in this hellhole in a long, long time.

The restless itch is gone from his skin, and his chest feels lighter, even though it hadn’t been heavy before. He decides to browse the small library that’s in the back of the room, but is startled to find Izaya curled up with a book in the corner. He’s so engrossed in his reading that he doesn’t notice the blond, so Shizuo takes his chance to grab a random book off a shelf and move back to the front of the room. There are couches and comfy chairs situated in the opposite corner from the TV set and the teens. Shizuo selects a couch and settles in, only now noticing that his book is actually about advanced botany. Great.

He enjoys watching the young trio tease each other-- about slipping on bananas or something-- far more than the plant textbook. Eventually the empty feeling returns though, and he struggles with how to fix it this time. He went to the rec room and he’s around other people, what more does his subconscious want from him?! He didn’t have this problem with Shingen…

“Uh…” The small voice drags him away from the stupid plant book. He had been staring intently at a picture of some weird fruit from some weird country he couldn’t pronounce, trying to force his brain to ignore the unpleasant feeling in his gut. He looks up to find the young brunet boy from the teen trio standing cautiously next to the couch.

The boy smiles, a small shy gesture, but his voice is steady. “Sorry to bother you. Would you like to play with us? The game allows for four players.”

Shizuo is so taken aback that he just stares dumbly at the kid for a minute before he remembers that he’s supposed to reply. “Ah, yeah. Sure.” He follows the kid to the TV and sits down next to the blond kid, nodding at him and Anri in greeting.

The brunet hands him a controller, which he doesn’t even know how to hold correctly. The kids quickly realize this when Shizuo immediately falls off the map three consecutive times. They show him how to actually hold it and even what each button and weird stick does. They all cheer when he manages to come in 6th place instead of dead last. There’s a strange warmth in his chest, and he’s very glad to not be locked in solitary with just a wall for company.

His eyes flit to the back of the room for a second, and he notices Izaya looking up from his book, watching him. When their eyes meet, Izaya winks at him.


	7. Pure Craving

Izaya strolls through the halls of Shinra’s section, glancing into various procedure rooms. Most of the rooms that subjects frequent are outfitted with large windows to make monitoring easier for the guards. It also makes it easier for Izaya to watch his lovely humans.

He steps away from a tragically empty procedure room and catches sight of his favorite monster down the hall. One of the guards, Akabayashi, guides Shizuo along. Akabayashi is probably only there to make sure the protozoan doesn’t fall flat on his face, given how Shizuo is hobbling with a pair of crutches. Or rather, fighting with the crutches would probably be a more apt description.

“What happened, Shizu-chan?” Izaya tries to push some fake concern into his voice, but he’s probably laughing too hard. With a brace around one of Shizuo’s legs, it’s pretty obvious that Shingen had made him lift something too heavy, but Izaya can’t resist rubbing it in the blond’s dumb face. His hands are also taped up a bit, probably the only reason he hasn’t snapped the crutches in half yet.

Shizuo rumbles out a warning, “Shut _up_ , you bastard.”

Izaya turns to Akabayashi, who is watching the aggressive exchange with some amusement. Izaya quite enjoys the scarred guard, even if he has a soft spot for Anri and thus sneaks her contraband, which in turn makes it difficult for Izaya to sell contraband to the teen trio. He’s also a bit too sharp witted and often sees through Izaya’s lies, so Izaya tends to only seek out the redhead’s company when he’s looking for a challenge. “I can take it from here, Akabayashi-san.”

“Oh?” Akabayashi says with a smile that Izaya is sure unnerves many people. He shrugs and turns around without a fight, ever the laid back guard. It’s kind of surprising that he hasn’t been fired yet. “See you later, kiddos.”

Shizuo seems at a loss with the turn of events, and just gapes at Izaya, his face turning more and more outraged. He tries to step forward but misplaces his crutch, precariously tipping backward. Izaya catches the crutch and steadies the stupid brute. “Relax, I won’t hurt someone that can’t defend themselves. I’m not a _monster_ ,” he says with a grin and a shake of the head, pointedly stretching his neck so that Shizuo can get a nice view of the fading bruises.

This stills Shizuo. The blond beast has been unpredictable so far, so it’s been hard to manipulate him into anything besides anger. Izaya is ecstatic to find this new emotional flaw that is so easy to mold, and he is very thankful that he’s erased guilt from his own emotional repertoire.

He encourages Shizuo forward and the beast complies with a bit of disgruntled muttering. “ _You_ made me do it…”

“It’s not my fault you can’t control yourself,” Izaya bites back. They reach the dorm, and Izaya guides Shizuo to his bed, which he immediately plops himself into with a groan. Izaya sits down in front of the bed, watching the miserable display with amusement. It feels like glorious retribution to watch Shizuo injured and in pain, after the protozoan had seen Izaya’s own weakened state in the observation room and the arena. He’s not willing to leave the beast in peace just yet.

Shizuo groans when he notices that Izaya is still there. “Go away, Flea.”

“Poor Shizu-chan. I’m just trying to help,” Izaya chides, making small sounds of sympathy. Shizuo just rolls over, pointedly facing the wall.

After a couple minutes of silence, Izaya grows too bored to continue watching the unmoving pathetic creature. He’s unwilling to leave though, something seems unappealing about going to the library to read alone. Seeing Mikado invite the blond beast to play video games with him the day before had irritated Izaya, for an unidentifiable reason.

He argues with himself over the strange, unwanted feeling, unhappily coming to the conclusion that he is jealous. He shouldn’t be. Observing humans and all their wonderful faults is his sole joy in life, his one and only purpose. That damn inhuman monster must be messing him up, somehow. An external factor is disrupting the results.

The thought of the library sparks an idea, and he jumps up. Shizuo doesn’t react at all when he skips out of the room or when he returns with a book in hand.

“You must be bored stuck in that bed, Shizu-chan, so I’ll read to you!” Izaya chirps, opening the book about advanced botany that he had seen Shizuo trying to read. “Didn’t know you had an interest in flowers.”

This gets Shizuo’s attention, and he flips around, expression written in complete confusion. “What the hell?” He asks eloquently.

Izaya clears his throat, picking a page at random. “’ _Plants and various other groups of photosynthetic eukaryotes collectively known as “algae” have unique organelles known as chloroplasts._ ’”

Izaya has to stop reading because Shizuo’s face looks like he’s currently in the middle of an internal meltdown and he can’t stop the laughter that tumbles out.

“What does that even mean?” the brute asks in horror.

“All living things are made up of cells, see,” Izaya explains excitedly, “and a cell has a collection of structures that help it function. Only plant cells have a structure called a chloroplast, which is what allows a plant to use photosynthesis. It’s really very basic.”

Shizuo, shockingly, looks like he’s actually following along. “I think I understand, but you lost me at the last part.”

“Ah, photosynthesis is how plants turn sunlight into energy. Haven’t you ever wondered why plants can survive without eating?”

“No,” Shizuo mutters. He raises his eyebrows at Izaya, like he wants him to continue reading, and Izaya is more than happy to oblige. He shuffles the pages further into the book, trying to find information that he doesn’t already know. He reads out random tidbits, sharing with Shizuo whenever he learns something new. Each sentence leaves the blond looking adorably lost, and Izaya has to translate into what he affectionately deems ‘protozoan speak’, which Shizuo growls at.

A loud complaint from Shizuo’s stomach stops Izaya after a while, and he glances at the wall clock. “Your stomach seems to know that it’s dinner time.”

“Ah, I had to skip lunch for the experiment,” Shizuo recalls. He practically tumbles out of bed and stands, opting for only one crutch this time. They leave for the cafeteria and Izaya marvels at how just a couple hours has improved Shizuo’s state.

“Did Shinra tell you if it’s broken?” Izaya asks, nodding at Shizuo’s leg.

“Yeah, just a minor break.” He shrugs, no pain in his expression. Izaya muses that it’s not necessarily that Shizuo heals faster than normal; he just has an obnoxiously high pain and discomfort tolerance.

A deafening alarm blares through the small hallway, which startles them both. Izaya immediately drops to the ground, but when Shizuo stands, frozen, Izaya snatches the idiot’s wrist and pulls him down. “You have to be on the floor when an alarm sounds or the guards will sedate you, don’t you know that, you protozoan?” Izaya hisses, fighting to be heard over the wretched noise.

Akabayashi rounds a corner and spots them. “Alright, let’s get you two to your dorm,” he shouts.

“What’s happening?” Shizuo asks, standing quickly.

“’Dunno. All test subjects need to be in their dorms, though. C’mon,” he ushers them on. He rushes back out as soon as he deposits them in their dorm. Anri and Mikado are already there, sitting together on Mikado’s bed. Anri is intensely worried, but Izaya is happy to find that Mikado’s expression is just positively thrilled.

The obvious missing presence in the room causes laughter to burst past Izaya’s lips, and he’s so overjoyed that he jumps in place. “Yes, _yes_ , I didn’t expect him to actually do it! Ah, ahaha! It’s amazing what a screwdriver and a couple of carefully selected words can do!”

Shizuo looks at him like he’s gone absolutely psychotic. “What the fuck are you going on about?”

Izaya just laughs, twirling in his bright spot, as the rest of the room dims into dread.


	8. You Are Not A Human Being

The obnoxious alarm finally stops, which pulls a sigh of relief from Shizuo. Izaya is still celebrating in his own little demented world when Shinra enters the room. The flea runs up to Shinra excitedly. “Shinra, Shinra! What’s happening?”

The doctor regards his charge with a bit of apprehension. “Kida-kun tried to escape.”

Shizuo has to dig around in his brain to place the name, but from the shocked noises from Anri and the brunet boy, he can gather that Kida is their blond friend, the kid who is also under Shingen.

The small brunet boy speaks up. “Did he… succeed?”

“No,” Shinra says, expression blank. “He made it out of the building somehow, but security caught him trying to scale the outside gates.” Shizuo isn’t sure if Shinra is intentionally unreadable or if he just doesn’t care. His opinion of the doctor has been steadily growing more positive, after seeing all the small kindnesses Shinra privileges his charges with. He has, perhaps stupidly, started to think that Shinra might see experimenting on people against their will as wrong, but just can’t do anything against his father. Shizuo doesn’t want to be wrong about Shinra, but he accepts that he probably is.

“The situation’s pretty unsteady right now,” Shinra continues into the quiet of the room. “Kida-kun has been taken to isolation and my father’s working on understanding what exactly happened. You all have to stay here in the meantime. I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

He waits for anyone to say something else, and when he is met with heavy silence, he leaves the room.

The small brunet almost immediately rounds on Izaya. An intensity that Shizuo never thought he’d see on the young boy’s face darkens his features. “You said you’d make sure Kida-kun wouldn’t get in trouble.”

The bastard shrugs, unapologetic. “I don’t control his actions, Mikado-kun. Attempting to escape was his decision; you know he’s been talking about it for a long time. Even if I provided incentive, it was ultimately his choice.”

“Shingen could declare him a true failure now.” Mikado steps closer to Izaya, his fists tightly clenched.

“Kida-kun was very unhappy here, unlike you,” Izaya says smoothly, unconcerned. “It’s not my fault he wanted to escape an unwholesome place such as this.”

Shizuo isn’t sure he’s following the conversation correctly. He doesn’t want to butt into the conversation, but he asks his question anyway. “What happens to true failures?”

Izaya gives him a perfectly unsettling smile. “They’re dissected, often without anesthesia. A couple years ago, two subjects tried to escape, Yumasaki and Karisawa, and they were dissected and discarded.”

“Now you’ve led Kida-kun to the same horrible thing,” Anri speaks up, stepping up close to Mikado. Her eyes flash, and Shizuo knows in this moment that he’s underestimated these two kids severely.

Their anger and concern for their friend twists something inside of Shizuo. The happy laughter of the three kids, Mikado inviting him to play with them, all three of them teaching him how to play the silly game. Kida had teased him mercilessly and told horrendously unfunny jokes. In Shizuo’s mind, Kida’s laughter fades to quiet sobbing, his hands desperately clawing for freedom only to be dragged away to leather straps and the glint of a scalpel. A bright spot of his time here, now soured by Izaya. This fucking disgusting pathetic excuse for a human being is playing with _children’s_ lives.

His muscles scream at him. If he doesn’t do something with this rage, it’ll eat his insides. He doesn’t have the self restraint or the clarity of mind to throw a pillow this time. He grabs the nearest, largest object in his immediate area, because his anger will consume no less. The bunk he and the scumbag share scrapes along the ceiling as he hefts it above his head the best he can.

The bastard has the _gall_ to look unimpressed. “Shizu-chaaaan, don’t destroy my bed!” He complains.

A wordless bellow rumbles through his chest and out past his mouth. The consuming fury almost suffocates him; his only option is to scream in order to let out air. His chest needs more room for the rage to settle. He hurls the bed at the source of his misery, his rage, the parts of himself he hates.

Izaya dodges easily, and the bed crashes through the large window that leads into the hall. Glass shatters, raining reflected light through the air.

Shizuo barely registers his leg protesting, probably broken in more places than before, and the shouts of guards. He launches himself at the damn snake but misses again.

His collar injects three doses of sedative into his neck. The last thing he sees is Izaya’s teeth bared in a grin as his vision fades.

~

It’s not until the next morning that Shizuo wakes up. No one is in the dorm, so breakfast must be under way. He shuffles to the cafeteria, still feeling half asleep. 

He notices the whispers when he sits down at the usual table. The tables in close vicinity to his spot are empty, people crowding together at tables further away. 

“Everyone heard about you smashing that window. Aren’t the beds bolted down?” Tom says as he and Vorona sit down across from Shizuo. 

Shizuo nods, dejected. Now the rest of the facility knows about how much of a monster he is. 

“Don’t worry about it, Shizuo,” Tom says, voice soothing and good natured. “They’ll settle down. The same thing happened when you beat up that security guard a while back.”

Vorona seems completely unconcerned as she nods along, as if Shizuo is silly for even bothering with the other subjects. “They are weak,” she says simply, digging into her food with a practiced routine that she never falters from. 

“Thanks,” Shizuo mumbles. He is so grateful for them both sticking with him that his chest aches. 

Tom shakes his head at the empty space around them before turning back to Shizuo, deciding to change the subject. “Did you hear that someone tried to escape? The whole place is buzzing about it.”

“Mm, it was a kid I knew. Under Shinra,” Shizuo responds. He frowns at the tendrils of anger that hesitate around the edges of his mind, the memory of Izaya celebrating the misfortune of a teenager pulling the rage closer. 

“I heard that the young man made it far, but failed to plan ahead for the outside gates,” Vorona supplies. 

“It’s a shame he didn’t make it,” Tom says thoughtfully. He pokes at his eggs with a fork, more pushing things around than eating. “I just cringe when I think about how they might punish him.”

Shizuo hears Izaya explaining coldly how previous subjects were dissected again, and his anger snarls around his senses. “That fucking bastard is fucking around with _kids_ ,” he growls out.

Tom and Vorona flinch back, Vorona even standing up reflexively. Shizuo is taken aback before he registers the vague pain in his hand. He forces the muscles in his fingers to relax, and shards of his cup clatter to the table. 

It’s just the smallest flash of fear in their expressions, but it’s enough to cause something inside Shizuo to fall. They’re _scared_ of him.

 _You are a monster_ whispers around his ears and he kicks away from the table, escaping the cafeteria with a small apology on his lips. 

He has no idea where to go. This damn hellhole has people everywhere, no suitable place for a monster to hide. He finds himself in the rec room, but this room has a sole occupant.

Curious almost red eyes look at him from over a book in the back corner of the small library.

He expects the rage to overtake him but it doesn’t. This is the absolute last person he should encounter right now, but his body is not tensing, his brain not shutting down to hand control over to an overwhelming need to destroy. 

His chest just feels empty, and Izaya’s eyes hold no fear. They never have when meeting his own. 

In the uncomfortable calm of his mind, he concedes that even if Izaya’s intentions were misplaced, he did help someone try to escape the horrible life of a person degraded to an experimental material. He can’t say that Izaya had hoped the kid wouldn’t succeed; his plan wasn’t to see Kida tortured.

Shizuo grabs a book and plops himself next to Izaya before he can argue with himself. He opens the book almost aggressively, not seeing any of the words. Izaya is momentarily startled by the blonde’s sudden presence, and after watching Shizuo studiously ignore him with his book for a moment, he asks a bit cautiously, “What are you doing?”

“Reading,” Shizuo roughly answers.

The flea shakes his head, but goes back to his book without a snide remark.


	9. Distracted Collapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to my beta, Guuzenkamo~ seriously, go read her magnificent stuff <3

Izaya hits the send button on his contraband phone. He can’t truly do much with it, because Shiki programmed it with only his number, and it can’t access the internet. It’s mostly for pictures and other documentation of the facility, unfortunately. He did manage to steal Shinra and Celty’s number out of the doctor’s office though. He sends a message off to Shinra entirely composed of emoticons just to annoy him.

He meanders out of the camera’s blind spot after stashing his phone in a pocket he stitched himself on the inside of his shirt. He has memorized the location of all the cameras and their blind spots in Shinra’s section and other select areas.

Leaning against a wall in a deserted hallway, Izaya mulls over Shizuo’s strange behavior this morning and how it had made him react. When met with unfamiliar things inside himself, he makes sure to step back and examine whatever it is ruthlessly. He really isn’t sure how to identify the weird, quiet emotion he felt when Shizuo joined him in the rec room, obviously upset about something. Izaya had skipped breakfast because of nausea, but he had heard the fearful whispers about Shizuo’s crazy strength. _Tore a bolted bed right out of the floor_ they exclaimed in hushed voices. _Better not make him angry._

It was his goal to show Shizuo that he’s nothing but a monster, which seems to have succeeded. But it was surprising that the beast had sought out Izaya’s company, of all people. Having Shizuo there, quietly reading next to him had been oddly… pleasant. There was something he recognized inside Shizuo that he found in himself, but couldn’t place what exactly it was.

Izaya knocks his head into the wall, frustration at unraveling his sparse, confusing emotions getting the better of him. Foolish, to think that he has anything in common with that monster. Whenever he encounters some small unfamiliar strand of his own emotions, which is uncommon, he picks and slices at it until he understands and the feeling can be dismembered and stored away. But he can’t seem to grasp onto the threads of the fleeting sensation, so he can’t shove it away and ignore it yet. 

Someone rounds the corner down the hall, and Izaya abandons his mental vivisection. The navy blue haired boy smiles charmingly as he approaches Izaya. “Do you have my items?” Aoba asks amiably.

Izaya returns the smile with double the charm. Oh how he loves to play with this young cunning boy. He believes that others overestimate Aoba’s manipulative nature when they compare the boy to his obviously superior self. Aoba doesn’t love humanity like Izaya does, so he could never remove himself from their influences. Though he does have to give the boy credit for being quite perceptive.

“Of course,” Izaya says, mock offended. “Do you have mine?”

Aoba hums an affirmative. “Mind if I pick the spot this time?” He starts walking down the hall, past Izaya, without waiting for a positive answer, but politeness still oozes from his posture.

“Oh~? So you’ve found a blind spot?” Izaya asks, following the younger boy.

“Yes, in an unused part of Shinra’s labs.” Aoba gestures him forward. “Just down this way.”

Izaya thinks he knows which blind spot Aoba is leading him to. The hallways they’re moving through are so solitary that guards don’t even patrol in this section. Truthfully it’s on the edge of Shinra’s territory; it was another scientist’s section until they were killed by a subject and the labs were left abandoned.

A warning twists at the back of his mind about the danger of such a section, and he knows he can physically take on Aoba, but he also knows that he shouldn’t underestimate the young brunette.

He rounds a corner to see Izumii Ran planted in the center of the hallway, arms crossed and grin malicious. Aoba moves behind Izaya, a constructed shiv forcing him closer to Izumii.

“Mmm, it seems you’ve corralled me,” Izaya says, dripping undiluted indifference. He turns so he can watch both of the brothers. His gut twists, a thrill of danger running through his veins. He’s not sure why the brothers are attacking him, as him and Aoba have been on fairly good terms because of their contraband deals. “You do know there are cameras in this hall?”

Aoba nods towards the camera in the corner. “It’s been broken for two days. They’re waiting for new parts.” Izaya confirms that the camera light is indeed off, a small metal plate clinging to life by a few wires adorning the side. He’s truly in danger, and his mind focuses acutely on the threats on either side of him.

“A shiv, really, Aoba-kun?” Izaya deflects. “Are we in prison now?”

“Prison would be better than this,” Aoba says, inclining his head toward Izumii, who charges at Izaya with a nearly deranged happiness.

Izaya dodges the tall male, knowing that his skill is running, so if he’s caught he’s done for. He manages to slip past Izumii, but the scarred man snatches Izaya’s arm, yanking him back. Izumii knees him in the stomach and he crumples to the ground. After kicking Izaya in a number of places a multitude of times, the snap of his own ribs echoing in his ears before the pain hits, Izumii picks him up and slams him face first into the wall. He leans into Izaya, forcing an arm behind his back. “Been wanting to beat the shit out of your smug face for a while, Izaya-kun, and the cigarettes Aoba’s giving me are just a bonus,” Izumii breathes into his ear.

“I can give—” Izaya struggles to get the words out between gasps of air spasming through his damaged ribcage. “you more. Aoba gets them from—” He can’t finish the sentence as a cloth is forced in his mouth. The irony isn’t lost on Izaya that Aoba has lured him here with a deal to get the very thing he is paying Izumii with.

“Let’s stop that annoying mouth of yours, hmm?” Aoba says as he tightens the cloth around Izaya’s head. Fear trickles into his body, as his best weapon, his voice, is taken from him. Even if he was cautious, he definitely underestimated the boy. He never thought that Aoba could get his brother to do something like this, given the animosity between the two. The surprise would be lovely, would give him a wonderful laugh, but not when he’s being manhandled because of it.

“We’ve got a special gift for you, Izaya-kun,” Aoba says, holding up a syringe for Izaya to see. “Anri-chan was kind enough to tell us which drugs you’ve reacted badly too in the past, since she’s also under Kujiragi.”

Fear scrambles through his mind. These people are not allowed to have the same level of control Kujiragi has over him. He chafes under Kujiragi’s power over his body and mind already, barely forcing himself to still love her. At least she’s indifferent about him, and is ultimately just using him to reach a scientific goal. Aoba wishes to hurt. He could easily kill Izaya with an overdose, nevermind the unfavorable side effects.

He struggles against Izumii, but the scarred subject stills him with little effort, shoving him harder into the wall, and Izaya curses his weak physicality. Aoba slips the needle into the soft flesh of Izaya’s inner elbow, emptying poison into his system and Izaya truly panics. Static immediately flourishes in his head as cold slithers through his chest.

His breathing grows erratic as the air seems to turn malevolent. His brain devolves into irrational anxiety over the fact that he can’t get enough air, even though he knows that it’s because some ribs are broken and Izumii is crushing him against the wall. The heat of Izumii is suddenly too much, burning his skin as the poison in his veins eats through his insides. Smothered, senses overwhelmed, Izaya’s legs no longer hold him up, and Izumii adjusts for the dead weight.

Movement over Aoba’s shoulder catches Izaya’s eye as he searches wildly for an escape. Down the hall, watching silently, is Mikado. With the small boy’s presence, Aoba’s strange hostility suddenly makes sense in his addled mind. It’s not Aoba he’s underestimated, but Mikado. The boy’s desire for revenge was strong enough to convince Aoba to ambush Izaya with the help of his brother. Izaya hadn’t realized how far Mikado would go for Kida. Now _this_ surprise is enough to make a chuckle escape trembling lips, even with his quickly declining senses.

Aoba glances down the hall, frowning when he realizes why Izaya is laughing, the sound almost demented. “Hurry up, Aniki.”

Izumii ignores his younger brother, patting around Izaya’s stomach. “Oh, what’s this?” He says as he pulls out Izaya’s phone and earbuds from under his shirt. He roots through the phone, holding the smaller male against the wall with one hand, relaxing now that Izaya is lost in the throes of overstimulation. “Lame, just music…”

“Wait, that gives me an idea.”


	10. Crippling Cacophony

Shizuo has never been in this section of the labs before. He just came from dinner, trying to escape from Tom and Vorona’s apologetic assurances that they know he can’t control his strength and understand that he would never hurt them. He loves them, but the brief fear he had seen in their eyes keeps flashing through his head. The looks ranging from terrified to disgusted from the other subjects certainly don’t help.

The dorms, rec room, and even showers had been occupied, so Shizuo wandered off down a randomly picked hallway in order to find some solitude.

A small, pained noise, only audible because of the silence pervasive in these dead halls, catches Shizuo’s attention. He follows the sound, worried that someone might be hurt. When he finds the trembling bundle curled up in a corner, he almost turns back around at the sight of black hair and a red shirt. He may have sought out the flea’s company in the library that morning, but he’s not ready to deal with biting insults right now.

A noise that sounds suspiciously like a sob stops him. Izaya is pointed towards the wall, and Shizuo now notices torn cloth acting as rope ties his wrists behind his back. A small, strange almost static-like sound emanates from him. It sounds like… music?

He sighs and kneels in front of Izaya, gently grabbing his arm and rolling him over so he can see Izaya’s face. Izaya’s body spasms at the touch, a whimper shuttering out from him. Tears slide down his face from tightly shut eyes, soaking the fabric that is forced in his mouth. Shizuo’s mind blanks, meeting with a sight that he’s not sure he can comprehend.

He has earbuds in, indiscernible music spilling from the tiny speakers. It has to be on full blast. The cord to the buds wraps around his neck, probably to keep him from rubbing the earbuds off. They’re obviously hurting him somehow, so Shizuo pulls the ear buds out. Izaya gasps in rapid breaths, like a weight has been lifted from him.

“What happened to you?” Shizuo asks as he takes the cloth from Izaya’s mouth. He only receives a groan in response, so he works on untying the louse’s hands.

As soon as he pulls the fabric away, Izaya rasps quietly, “Please stop touching me.”

There’s a small stab of irritation at the ungratefulness, but Shizuo reminds himself of how Izaya’s skin is tensing at even the slightest touch. There’s something wrong with the flea, not him. So he scoots back a bit to give the smaller male some space.

With his hands now free, Izaya sits up with help from the wall, leaning himself against it heavily. His breath hitches, rattling and uneven. His shaking hands hover around his face, like he wants to wipe the tears away but is unwilling to.

“Why are you crying?” Shizuo tries again, glancing around to see if maybe the perpetrator is still here.

“Because it _hurts_ ,” Izaya hisses in violent indignation. “Stop fucking _talking_.”

Shizuo doesn’t think he’s ever heard the louse cuss before, and his mouth snaps shut with an audible pop. Izaya drags his hands across his face to wipe away the water and whimpers at his own action. After a couple deep breaths, he chokes out “Just give me—a second.”

Shizuo nods, positive he’s not allowed to talk yet. His brain is still having trouble processing the sight before him. He’s never been able to catch the flea until that arena match, and that was only because Izaya was drugged. Did someone else use the same tactic? The brunet is quite pallid and shaky, like on the day of the rigged mock fight.

Izaya rests his head against the wall, eyes closed, seeming to have finally taken some semblance of control over his breathing. “Not crying,” he says, voice muted. “Bodily reflex. From too much— sensation.”

“Are you—” Shizuo cuts himself off at Izaya’s cringe.

“Talk quietly please.”

“Okay,” Shizuo puts effort into lowering his volume as much as he can. He folds his hands in his lap, unsure of what to do with them since he’s still not supposed to touch Izaya. Not helping someone who is obviously in need, right in front of him, sets an uncomfortable feeling fluttering through his stomach. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Ambushed. Some other subjects— drugged me,” He says, curling his limbs tighter into himself, still faintly trembling. When he blinks up at Shizuo, his brown, almost red eyes are hazy and unfocused. He’s too sensitive to the light and shuts his eyes again.

Shizuo frowns, deciding that Izaya is too out of it to question him further. “Can I touch you now? I need to take you to Shinra.”

Izaya doesn’t respond, his whole form hunched. After a moment of anxious silence, Izaya shakily breathes out “I’m afraid of what— Kujiragi’s done to me.”

“What?” Shizuo asks, taken aback. He has to replay the quiet words in his mind in order to hear them properly. Fear and Izaya simply do not mix in Shizuo’s world.

“Kujiragi can do this—to me,” Izaya continues. “What if she’s… made me this way. Constructed my love for humans and my— inability to connect. With others.”

Shizuo is at a complete, utter loss. He grapples with something to say without even understanding fully what Izaya has just admitted. Before he can force some random, misplaced words out, though, Izaya groans, clutching at his abdomen. He leans forward and empties his stomach on the floor, horrible spasms racking his spine.

“Okay, I am definitely taking you to Shinra now,” Shizuo mutters. Even he knows that if some other subjects drugged Izaya, they could have dangerously overdosed him. He very carefully scoops the smaller man up when he’s done vomiting and an agonized shout scratches out from Izaya’s throat. He tries to give Izaya time to adjust before he starts moving.

Now that he’s holding Izaya, Shizuo can feel the intense heat leaking from his skin. It pulls at Shizuo’s anxiety, and he tries his best to walk briskly but smoothly through the halls, in order to not jostle the trembling body in his arms.

“You’re pathetic, you know,” Izaya whispers, clutching at Shizuo’s shirt. “Trying to use me, someone you hate, to fill the gaping, lonely hole inside of yourself.”

Shizuo almost stops midstep, but his mind is so consumed with the need to get Izaya to Shinra that he just crumbles Izaya’s cruel words and shoves the bits to the edge of his mind. He’ll deal with it later, when it doesn’t feel like the world is deconstructing around him because he’s carrying his enemy as gently as possible to someone who can treat his wounds, possibly even save his life.

When he reaches Shinra’s office, he barely keeps himself from kicking the door off its hinges. Instead he shuffles Izaya in his arms and slams his fist roughly on the wood. “Shinra! Hey—”

The door swings open, revealing a startled, wide eyed Shinra. “What is—”

Shizuo rushes inside, displaying Izaya to the doctor, not sure if the man is even conscious anymore. “Help him.”

Shinra’s countenance immediately turns focused. He reaches forward, first checking Izaya’s pulse. He notices the flinch at the skin contact. “Is it another attack?”

“Attack?” Shizuo echoes.

“Izaya gets sensory overload sometimes,” Shinra explains, moving his hand to Izaya’s sweaty forehead. “It’s a side effect of his experiments. It happened during your arena battle.”

“I don’t know, some people drugged him. I found him tied up in the hall.” Shizuo isn’t sure what to do, so he just clutches Izaya tighter in his arms, careful to keep skin contact to a minimum. He’s never felt this helpless before, this… panicked before. Most of his problems so far, he’s been able to solve with his fists.

“Do you know what they drugged him with?” Shinra says, his examination moving to Izaya’s stomach, which the brunet still has his arms tightly wrapped around.

“Same thing as—arena fight,” Izaya forces out, startling both Shinra and Shizuo.

Shinra recovers faster, his brain obviously trained for intense situations. “Take him this way,” he commands, leading Shizuo out of the office. Shizuo is just grateful for someone telling him what to do, how to help.

Shinra takes them to a procedure room and tells Shizuo to place Izaya on the cot in the center of the room. He complies as Shinra starts setting up what looks like an IV stand. He looks at Izaya, almost the same color as the sheets, face contorted in pain. 

“I can take it from here, Shizuo,” Shinra says, dismissing him. 

With nothing else to do, with no conceivable argument to stay, Shizuo leaves the room. He glances back at Izaya on the cot, who is struggling to breathe, as the door shuts. He stands, empty, just outside the closed door, entirely not sure what to do with himself. After a while, he sits under the window to the procedure room, wishing he had one of those contraband cigarettes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had an impulse to name this chapter "get rekt Izaya", but shhhh things have to be professional and/or poetic or the pseudo profesh fanfic gods will be unhappy. what. what am I even saying. please ignore me.


	11. Delicate Bones

Transferring to Shinra has proven to be terrible for his sleeping habits. Shizuo rubs at his drooping eyes, barely functioning on a couple hours of fitful sleep. He had been too aware of the empty bed above him, brain too full of words and emotions he tried desperately to understand.

He drags his tired body to Shinra’s office, pausing at the window to the room occupied by the flea. He’s unconscious, skin paper white but somehow better than last night, dark bruises on his arms and torso sneaking out from under the sheets. Wires scatter around his body like an electrical spider has found a liking to him. There’s tubes running up to his nose, supplying him with extra air to ease the strain on his lungs, as Shinra had explained to him. Last night, the doctor had left the room to find Shizuo still sitting there, and after telling the blond that Izaya was stable, had sent him to the dorms.

Shizuo turns away with a frown, the same words that had haunted his night repeating in his ears. _I’m afraid. Lonely hole inside of yourself. I’m afraid. Inability to connect. I’m afraid._

He’s about to knock on Shinra’s door, shaking his head to dispel the whispers, but the door is already ajar. Shinra’s high voice slips out through the opening. The doctor has a guest, so Shizuo decides to come back later, but curiosity stops him when he hears Shinra’s next words. 

“Two ribs are broken now, he needs more time to rest.”

“I’ve put my tests on hold for five days for his sprained wrist, just for him to break his ribs,” comes the emotionless reply. The female voice speaks as if Izaya broke his own ribs on purpose. A small, metallic squeal catches Shizuo’s attention and he’s crunched the metal door handle in his hand, surprised to find that he’s become angry for Izaya instead of because of Izaya for the very first time. “Broken bones will not interfere with my experiments, I need him now.”

“You gave him five days for a sprained wrist but won’t give him anything for broken ribs?” Shinra asks, and Shizuo partially sees the doctor throw his hands up in the air, exasperated, through the crack in the door. “Plus, the drugs are still leaving his system, the drugs that were stolen from _your_ lab.”

“Security is not my job.” The flat apathy in her voice floats easily around the door, crawling down Shizuo’s back, slow as honey. It somehow reminds him of Shingen, even though the scientist talks with excessive animation. “He has two days, then I will call for him. You are too soft on your experimental material.”

Shinra clicks his tongue, not in the least troubled by her indifferent insult. “Sorry that I want to increase external validity by introducing an environment that’s more similar to the world outside of a lab.”

There’s a shuffling sound, like the woman is standing up, messing with paper. “You harm the internal validity by exponentially increasing confounding variables.”

Shizuo can no longer keep track of the conversation, his brain completely refusing to process all the weird ass words he’s never heard before. An irritated sigh from Shinra brings him out of the pit of confusion.

“Ugh, why am I even arguing with you?” Shinra groans. “I’m a doctor, not a scientist; I’m just here to make sure the test subjects don’t die. You can get to your precious experiments now. I’ll send Izaya to you in two days. Probably in a wheelchair, by the way.”

The woman moves around a chair, and a flash of yellow has Shizuo barging into the room, his mind connecting yellow to Kujiragi to red to Izaya.

Shinra nearly falls out of his chair, but the woman in a yellow suit just stares dispassionately at him. “Shizuo, what are you—” Shinra sputters.

“You’re Kujiragi right?” he asks, trying to seep a bit of politeness into his tone, because the woman intimidates him, the collar around his neck growing uncomfortable. Shinra doesn’t bother him because he’s a dork in a lab coat, but the scientists have the power here, have the remote to the sedatives poised at his neck, the drugs and scalpels that turned him into a monster.

_I’m afraid of what Kujiragi’s done to me._

“Yes,” the woman nods, still undisturbed.

“Did you… make Izaya an asshole?” _Did you make him a monster like me?_

“Elaborate, please,” She says, adjusting the glasses on her nose.

Shizuo doesn’t have to fight to remember how Izaya had said it. “Did you construct Izaya’s personality?”

Kujiragi gestures towards Shinra’s second guest chair, sitting back down in her own. He sits and Shinra throws his hands up in defeat, surrendering his office into Kujiragi’s control. He deflates down to his desk, shuffling through papers with no interest.

“The goal of my experiment with Izaya is to expand the limits of the human brain,” Kujiragi says, her eyes the same sort of soulless as a stuffed animal; vaguely softhearted but ultimately impassive. “Memory, ability to process and store information, perception, etcetera. The point is to preserve his brain and enable it to function better and longer. I have not done anything that would be personality altering. The only results I’ve had with his experiment are the periods of overstimulation he suffers from.”

Shizuo sorts through the information, relief slowly lowering the set of his shoulders, the tension in his joints. Something that had been stewing in the back of his mind for days clicks together. He understands why he helped Izaya, how he was using Izaya to fill a hole inside of himself. 

“Thanks,” Shizuo says, only now wondering why Kujiragi even bothered to explain something to a test subject, to reassure a mere experimental material. He can’t picture Shingen doing the same, except to gloat about a success, maybe. But her experiment was a failure, and her emotionless delivery implies that she gained nothing from the exchange.

She nods and picks up a suitcase. She leaves the room calmly, her expression unchanged from the first moment he saw her.

“What was all that about?” Shinra asks, his head turned in childish curiosity.

Shizuo turns to him, acknowledging his presence for the first time. “Can I see Izaya?” He _definitely_ doesn’t want to see the flea because he’s worried. He just has the common decency to let Izaya know that his reason for being alive wasn’t programmed in him by someone else like a machine.

Shinra hops up, used to Shizuo ignoring his questions. Energy is back in his posture as he moves towards the door. “Mmm, sure. I’d warn you to not beat him up, but you’re the one that brought him to me… Why did you help him, by the way? You two hate each other.”

Because he’s right. Because Shizuo is so, so lonely. Because of those endless days under Shingen where he just stared at a white wall, his mind blank, his heart blank. Because of the fear in the eyes that watch him lift something ten times his weight over his head. Because of a wild look, desperate to force him to look inside himself. Because of a calm presence, unafraid, just existing beside him for a moment. Because of a soft, happy voice reading to him about plants.

His chest aches with the intangible things that scrape below his skin. “Because he’s a human being.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha, sorry about the scientific jargon. I'm a psychology major at uni, and I couldn't resist putting my psych nerd knowledge in here.


	12. Clinging to the Wreckage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a while, school decided to slam me with everything at once. I'm actually really... nervous about this chapter, but my beta said it made sense so I hope you guys enjoy it. So much angst.

Izaya slowly grasps onto vague consciousness. A familiar fog of medication weighs down his body, dousing the ache that otherwise would be resting in the soft tissues underneath his skin.

He hates this weak feeling almost as much as the oversensitivity attacks.

He might as well be strapped down to the bed with all the tubes and wires attached to his bruising skin. Ah, those are quite dark. Izumii really could have been a bit more gentle. There’s a plastic heartrate monitor eating his pointer finger, and an irritating IV in his inner elbow. Wrist IVs are so much easier to deal with, but Shinra must have taken blood. He wants to rip the annoying nasal cannula out, but has enough presence of mind to know it’s helping him breathe. There’s not enough painkillers in his system to completely erase the pain that sprouts in his chest with every breath, his own ribs working against him. His brain skips right over Izumii and Aoba to blame Mikado for the miserable state he’s in.

Even with how excited Izaya is for Mikado’s developing violence, the child will have to learn the hard way that Izaya _always_ ends up on top. His love for the boy’s humanity has only grown, and he’ll cherish watching Mikado’s corruption until the boy’s inevitable fall.

The door clicks open, and Izaya most certainly does not want to see Shizuo right now. Damn Shinra for letting this beast in Izaya’s presence when he’s so deplorably weak. His stupid blond hair just _infuriates_ Izaya. God, why did he say those nonsensical things to the dumb brute? Why did the beast carry him to Shinra, and not just laugh and leave him there to suffer with the deafening sound overwhelming his mind and his own chest suffocating him—

“What—” Izaya stops, his voice surprisingly raspy, the excessive medication drying out his throat. He tries to swallow down some saliva. “What do you want, Protozoan?” He doesn’t have enough energy to keep the anger from seeping into his words.

Shizuo pauses, hand still on the doorknob. He studies Izaya, eyes the color of honey and just as calm, then fully shuts the door. “To talk to you.”

This placid Shizuo is so frustratingly hard to read that Izaya wants to rip his IV out and stab it into the blonde’s throat. Izaya can only be happy when Shizuo isn’t, and the only infallible way to do that is to make the beast perfectly aware of his own inhumanity.

“Can’t it wait? I want to sleep,” Izaya says, not even lying. He’d really prefer to be unconscious for the duration of the concoction of drugs playing around with his body chemistry.

“Shinra said you should have some interaction. And he wanted me to ask you who attacked you.” Shizuo settles himself beside the bed, looking quite uncomfortable, fiddling with the cracked plastic armrests of the guest chair.

Shinra is horrible, and Izaya resolves to send a barrage of obnoxious, anonymous texts to the doctor later. Right now, he’ll do anything to get Shizuo away, so he plasters on a cheerful smile with too much teeth that he knows the blond hates. “Not gonna tell you, so you might as well leave~”

Shizuo’s frown deepens, his damn irritating honey eyes scrutinizing Izaya so heavily. “Why not?” It’s like he’s slowly piecing together a puzzle. The brute shouldn’t have the capabilities to even find any of the _pieces_.

“I didn’t see them.” Izaya grinds the words between his teeth. His shifts his weight, his body so unbelievably uncomfortable on this damn cot with all these damn wires everywhere and the damn tube in his arm. Restricted, held down, Shizuo needs to leave _now_. He’s already witnessed far too much of Izaya’s weakness. And now the monster’s just _watching_ him, bruised and so out of control in a mess of anger and vulnerability.

Shizuo doesn’t say anything, just makes himself more comfortable in his chair, clearly ready to wait here until Izaya talks. For the first time, because his exhaustion and frustration is too high, Izaya caves. “Fine, just ask your questions and then leave.”

Shizuo obviously doesn’t believe Izaya didn’t see the attackers, but he abandons that line of thought easily. “Do you really know where my brother is?”

Izaya momentarily has no idea what the hell the blond is talking about, but then he recalls his hasty, almost frantic threats back in the rigged arena fight. It’s surprising that the beast even remembers that. He consciously fiddles with the bedsheets instead of the tube in his elbow. He sighs, deciding to tell the truth because Shizuo has a weird ability to see through him, and lying might keep Shizuo here longer. “No. At least, not a specific location. And no, I won’t have Shiki bring him here.”

The protozoan takes a ridiculously long time to process this, then changes the line of questioning again. “Why did you say those things when I helped you yesterday?”

“Shizu-chan, it was nonsense. I was _drugged_ ,” Izaya says, staring, rage boiling through his chest. He tries again to shift in his bed, endlessly furious that he can’t crawl out of himself, away from the ache in his body and the humiliation Shizuo is forcing on him.

“You were right, though.”

The calm words stop Izaya. It’s never been this hard to keep his expression under control. “I always am, but about what, specifically?”

“That I’m lonely.” Shizuo hasn’t looked away from Izaya, uncomfortably looking into Izaya, unflinching at what he sees there. No one is allowed to see behind the persona Izaya has constructed for himself.

“Of course you’re lonely, you filthy monster,” Izaya bites, but it completely bypasses Shizuo.

“And you are too,” Shizuo says, and Izaya is so completely blindsided that he has absolutely no idea how to respond. There’s just a horrible, foreign silence in his mind, the only thing there a quiet echo of what Shizuo just said.

“It’s your own fault,” Shizuo continues, expression intense, as he leans closer to Izaya. “You push everyone away because you’re so afraid of being affected by anything. You say you love humans like you don’t want to be one, but you are. You’re a victim here, just like everyone else in his place.”

Izaya has never felt rage like this. It’s abhorrent and unexplored, so he doesn’t know how to control it. How could anger be this consuming, this much like a fire that is trying to sate itself by consuming his insides, his broken ribcage, his throat, the fraying edges of his mind? This fucking _monster_ is forcing him to acknowledge things that he has chained deep in his being.

“ _I am not a victim_ ,” he hisses, finally pulling the IV out of his arm, scratching the wires and tubes from his body. It hurts, god it fucking hurts, his broken ribs scraping, his bruised arms barely working, his strained lungs struggling to compensate without the extra supplied air. He has to get away from Shizuo, so he can close the open doors in his mind once again. It’s so much, too much; his thoughts racing too fast and he can’t focus on any one thing long enough.

The equipment lets out screaming warnings, _no signal means the patient is dead_ , as Shizuo scrambles to his feet. “Hey, Izaya, calm down!”

He forces his legs over the side of the bed, his vision blurring. He makes it one step before collapsing. He scrapes air into his lungs with large, heaving breaths, and Shizuo rushes towards him, those monstrous hands that had strangled him a week ago and then held him yesterday reaching for him.

“Don’t touch me,” Izaya warns, layering his voice with as much venom as possible.

Shizuo stops, the first sign of uncertainty in his expression. He sits in front of Izaya, folding his hands together. “I think you should know,” he says slowly, “that I talked to Kujiragi. She said she didn’t alter your personality. Her goal was to not change your brain like that. So you’re a bastard by nature, not science. You only have your own shitty decisions to blame for your terrible personality.”

His brain takes a long time to understand this information. He’s not a constructed monster. His mind is his own. He curls into himself, hugging his bruised, aching arms around his torso. Something else he doesn’t understand tugs at his skin, forcing the maelstrom inside his brain to calm. This is worse, so much worse. Tears build in his eyes until they spill down his face.

 _Relief_ , he identifies this emotion.

“Get out,” Izaya says with forced dispassion. Instead of feeling anything, he has to feel nothing.

“Izaya…” the monster says, still hovering there, the thing that ripped open his chest, reveling in his vulnerability.

“Get. Out.”

The monster leaves without another word, pushing right past a panicking Shinra hurrying into the room, who had been alerted that all his equipment has flatlined. Izaya crumbles into himself, painful sobs destroying his already hurting body.


	13. Mistaken Benevolence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned that all the subjects, not just Shizuo, have the collars? I don’t think I made that clear. But yeah. That’s a thing.

Izaya has always known that he’s more attached to Shinra than Shinra is to him, though he would never admit it out loud. Which makes it strange that Shinra has taken it upon himself to personally escort Izaya to and from Kujiragi’s experiments. It would be easier to just have the guards do it. He’s also allowed Izaya to stay in the procedure room and has had the cafeteria staff bring him meals. He’s grateful that Shinra has made it possible for him to avoid Shizuo while his ribs knit back together, another thing he will never admit.

Today, the experiment had just been a routine check up on his intelligence and brain functionality, but it’s still left him exhausted. He nearly melts into the wheelchair as Shinra wheels him back to his temporary room.

“Your ribs are healing up nicely, at least. I should probably have you start sleeping in the dorm again soon,” Shinra hums, ever positive and annoying.

Izaya just sighs, not sure when Shinra had become more than just another beloved human to him. He’s supposed to love all humans as a concept, not individually, but he’s found himself seeking out comfort and attention from the doctor. He’s also strangely protective of the idiot.

After Shizuo had confronted Izaya, that crushing humiliation clogging his throat and frustration running down his face, Shinra had gotten his hurting, sobbing body back into the bed. He gave Izaya an oxygen mask so that he didn’t suffocate himself, then simply sat there and waited for the brunet to calm. Shinra’s seen so many of Izaya’s weak moments, has patched up skin and waited out panic. It’s a bit worrying how well the doctor knows him and how he works.

“As long as I can walk properly before I have to start defending myself against Shizu-chan again,” Izaya finally responds, distracted by his constant inner analysis. He can’t decide if he likes these new developments with Shinra or not. On the thought of the blonde beast, he’s positive that he’ll no longer need to defend against Shizuo, given their last conversation. Stupid confusing monster. 

“Shinra!” Shingen, who has appeared just down the hallway from them, calls. “I’m giving 272 back to you now.” He gestures to the boy trailing behind him. Kida looks up, giving an uncertain glance towards Izaya.

Kida steps out from behind the scientist and there’s something immediately wrong with his figure. It’s then that Izaya realizes the complete absence of the boy’s left arm. It’s weirdly subtle but so glaringly obvious. His brain wants to fill in the space where something is supposed to be, has always been there, and when it can’t, it leaves him confused as to how he could have missed noticing something so innately wrong.

“Have the guards keep a watch on him for a bit as a pretense, but I know we won’t have a problem with him again,” Shingen says, already turning back and walking away with a wave over his shoulder.

“Ah, Tou-san, wait—” Shinra calls, futilely. He scratches the back of his head, looking down at Izaya, the person he’s supposed to cart around and not leave stranded in a hallway to go talk to his father.

Izaya just rolls his eyes at the doctor. This actually works perfectly to his advantage. “Go, Shinra. I’m sure Kida-kun can wheel me around, even with one hand.”

Shinra glances at the one armed boy and apparently decides he’s an acceptable chauffeur. He nods in thanks to Izaya and hurries off after the lunatic in a gas mask. Really, what a father.

Kida steps behind Izaya’s wheelchair and fumbles a bit with how to push it with his new handicap. He has the usual caution for Izaya’s person, but no real trepidation about it, Izaya notes. Kida decides to push on the back rest so that he has some control of the direction, and Izaya helps a bit with the wheeling, as his ribs are almost healed and only big, strenuous movements hurt now. Izaya chuckles at the thought of two cripples trying to figure out how to move down the hall together. He’s quite glad he’s not permanently crippled.

“Where are we going?” Kida asks, huffing a bit with the effort of his off balance pushing.

“The procedure room right next to Shinra’s office.” Izaya looks back so that he can study Kida’s face. “Are you angry with me, Kida-kun?”

The boy doesn’t flinch. Interesting. “No. You helped me. It was my fault I couldn’t get out, and got punished for it.” Kida is quiet for a moment, slowly rolling Izaya along, who waits patiently. “I got off easy, too. I even got anesthetic after the procedure.”

That was probably just to keep him from dying of shock, but Izaya refrains from saying that. Might as well keep Kida on his good side, for future plans. The boy is right that he could have lost a lot more than an arm, though. “You were almost to the outside world. You were able to make it out Shinra’s window, but you couldn’t get past the gate, Kida-kun?”

Kida is quiet again, and Izaya glances back over his shoulder to see him watching another subject pass by them. They’ve reached Shinra’s section, so it’s a bit more populated. Even guards like to linger here. Maybe with the subjects free to roam, it’s a bit more interesting than dead hallways. Kida watches Akabayashi walking Anri for a bit, an easy conversation flowing between the two, before answering Izaya. “I heard that Mikado attacked you, and I wanted to apologize.”

Oh, very interesting. That means that something happened during his escape if he doesn’t want to share details while others are around. And Kida isn’t stupid enough to believe Izaya would just drop it with such an obvious pause, so he’ll learn the specifics as soon as they’re alone. Izaya switches topics easily. “Yes, Mikado-kun was quite upset. He’ll be so happy to see that I haven’t led you to your brutal demise.”

Kida’s frown deepens. “I’ll talk to him. Just please don’t… do anything to him.”

“Who, me? I am above petty revenge, Kida-kun,” Izaya smiles angelically, just the right amount of teeth and rising of eyebrows. There will be nothing petty about what Mikado will do to himself.

They reach Izaya’s temporary room, and Kida wheels him in, shutting the door behind them. Izaya lifts himself from the chair and onto the cot, a small bit of pain spiking in this torso but nothing unmanageable. “So what happened during your escape?” He’s so excited he just can’t dance around the subject.

“Before I could finish with Shinra’s window,” Kida says, taking a seat in the guest chair, “a woman came into his office and stopped me. You should know her; she said she met both you and Shizuo. She seemed to think that the subjects were all here willingly…”

Just with these words, Izaya believes that he can face Shizuo again. He can’t even deny to himself that he’s been avoiding the beast ever since that horrendous confrontation. It feels as though pieces of himself that Shizuo had somehow broken off fall right back into place with Kida’s information, as a plan coalesces together like it’s always been waiting in the back of his mind. He’s comfortable back in his own skin again.

 _Wonderful._ He can’t keep the almost deliriously happy grin off his face, and doesn’t want to. Also, fascinating that Celty’s met Shizuo. “Yes, I know her. What did she think of your situation?”

Kida pauses at the obvious change in Izaya’s mood. “She was very upset. She said she’d like to help me anyway she could. She took the rest of the window off with… shadows.” Kida hesitates again, afraid of that posture he’s all too familiar with in Izaya’s form. “Did you know that she’s… headless?”

Izaya laughs, a full gesture that hurts his healing ribs. “Yes, yes she is.”


	14. Slow

Shizuo hasn’t seen Izaya in a week now.

Shizuo has never worried this much for _anyone_ in his _entire life._

And it's the _goddamn flea._

The last time he had seen Izaya, broken, shaking, so much rage in those red-brown eyes, stayed with him like someone had plastered a slideshow of it to the back of the inside of his skull. He slept terribly, he barely spoke to Tom and Vorona, and he hovered around the empty rec room like a wayward specter.

Izaya is avoiding him, he’s sure. An anger that Shizuo is all too familiar with had shown itself in the brunet’s tense frame, in his razor-edged expression. Shizuo knows he had to tell Izaya about his talk with Kujiragi, but it had only seemed to make Izaya even angrier. Maybe it was just bad timing? It was probably the opposite of tactful to wait until Izaya ripped himself out of the bed and was practically hissing at him like an abused animal. But Shizuo’s never been good at waiting or tact.

He lifelessly looks through the small library again, an action he has no idea how many times he’s repeated. He always pauses at that stupid plant book, then keeps reading the other titles without absorbing any words.

What the fuck is this horrible ache? He wants to just reach inside his chest and pull out whatever is shredding his organs. Strange that his insides can hurt this much, as they must be just as monstrously tough as the rest of his body.

Shizuo forces himself to stop not-looking at the books and glances at Mikado and Anri, who are sitting close to each other on one of the couches. They’re silently reading together, no brightly colored race cars or slipping on bananas, no laughter or smiles. The atmosphere clinging to the remaining subjects under Shinra certainly hasn’t helped his mood this week. Now it’s just Shizuo, Mikado, Anri and two other subjects that Shizuo doesn’t know the names of. The dorm is quiet, the rec room is quiet, the damn hallways are quiet and it’s dragging through Shizuo’s tendons like a switchblade and he just wants to tear this restlessness out of himself.

Shizuo is about to angrily look through the uninteresting books again when Anri looks up suddenly, disbelief on her lips. “Kida-kun?”

Shizuo follows her line of sight to the door of the rec room, and there’s the would-be escapee and possibly horribly murdered blond teen. Who is apparently not horribly murdered. Anri and Mikado jump up and rush towards Kida, their books and melancholy forgotten on the couch.

Shizuo is so relieved that he sits on the closest chair, just the right amount of stress leaving him that he’s not quite as anxious as before. He can’t even find the disappointment when he notices that Kida is missing an arm, because it’s so much better than being an eviscerated mess in a biohazard trash bin.

Anri and Mikado seem to agree, because they are hugging Kida tightly, tears down both their faces.

“We were so afraid you were dead,” Mikado manages to get out between somewhat pitiful hiccupping sobs.

Anri is much more composed, with a small smile underneath the tears. “I’m so sorry you couldn’t escape, Kida-kun, and I’m glad you’re alive.”

At this point, all three have melted to the floor, tangled together with limbs and concern and bittersweet happiness. Kida visibly squeezes his two friends closer, soaking up the love and attention. “I had the chance to escape… But I couldn’t leave without you guys.”

Shizuo’s chest hurts. He’s seen so little genuine emotion in this violent facility. He leaves the rec room, because he feels like he’s intruding, and he honestly can’t take much more of this display, with his hurting heart. He can feel walls falling away at the sight of what he wants so badly. It’s what he’s wanted so much it hurt horribly, that, to protect himself, he suffocated the feeling so completely that he forgot about it. A pure, meaningful connection with others. To not be alone anymore. _You were right. That I’m lonely._

A flash of black and red down a hallway, and Shizuo runs before he fully understands what he’s heading towards.

“Izaya!” he calls after the retreating back. Izaya’s spine bristles and he turns reluctantly toward Shizuo.

“Shizu-chan,” he greets, frowning, no trace of his smile or sneer or grin. Shizuo can only think back to Izaya sobbing, screaming at him. The first true, unguarded emotions Izaya had shown him.

“You can walk okay? Are you better now?” Shizuo asks, breathless. His small sprint down the hallway should not have winded him this much. It’s incredibly relieving to see Izaya standing, chest rising and falling without visible pain, no tubes in sight. 

“Some pain, but yes.” Izaya is still frowning. His face twists a bit, and he manages to bleed some derision into his tone. “Kida-kun’s back now. It’s such a shame about his arm.”

Shizuo doesn’t have the patience to let Izaya reassemble the pieces of his mask. “Izaya, just stop being a dick. I know you actually care. At least a little bit. Somewhere in that fucked up head of yours.”

Izaya sneers at him, not quite a snarl. “Not this again. You have no idea what you’re talking about, Shizu-chan. Don’t think that our last conversation shines any light on my so called ‘inner workings’. I was on heavy medication and not thinking clearly, you can not use that experience to draw any conclusions about me.”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Shizuo says, deciding to just ignore Izaya’s tirade. It’s become easier and easier to tell when Izaya is lying to protect himself. With Izaya standing in front of him, not twisting in pain or struggling with tears down his face, physically okay and back to his old psychological tricks, the worry that has been knotted around Shizuo’s spine and shoulders trails down his body and away. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Izaya just stares at him, and Shizuo would laugh at his open mouthed shock if he wasn’t too busy collapsing. With the tension no longer in his muscles, his week of endless worry and little care for his own person catches up with him. It’s even more satisfying to feel hands at his shoulders, intercepting him before he can crash to the excessively white tiled floor.


	15. Organizing Unpredictability

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Izaya is difficult and doesn't listen to me -.-

Watching the lump of monster is as boring as it is frustrating. Izaya is curled up on the floor in front of his shared bunk, counting the steady rise and fall of Shizuo’s chest. Izaya tries not to look at the IV in Shizuo’s elbow, because Shizuo’s unconscious shifting has moved it to a very uncomfortable looking position. It’ll probably leave quite a nasty bruise. Shizuo’s monstrous body will heal it in a couple hours though, so whatever.

This damn monster has put him in such a bad mood, so he ignores the slumbering beast and his conflicting emotions for his contraband phone, shielding it from the two cameras in the room with his chest.

_I want to help._

The shiver going down his spine is exquisite. Celty’s involvement has made his plan so much _better_. Kida had asked him to not take revenge, but this is a completely different animal. He’ll pull every last shred of delicious, cruel humanity out of Mikado, all while getting the added bonus of observing the reactions of a choice few others. Kida will still call it unnecessary retaliation, but, as always, Izaya will do little while Mikado will make his own choices. So really, he can’t be blamed. 

He sends her a reply, then slides the phone into his sewn pocket. His conversation with the headless woman is not enough to distract him from the terribly boring bedridden blond. Alliteration, apparently, is also not distracting enough. 

A tap at the window to the dorm, however, is quite distracting. Behind the raised hand, waving happily, are far too wide scarlet eyes.

Wariness settles in Izaya’s chest as he gets up and makes a show of sauntering over to greet the sudden guest. He leans against the door frame to the dorm, all ease and disguised guard. 

“You’ve finally been let out of solitary, Haruna-san?” Izaya asks pleasantly. 

Haruna smiles back, unblinking. Her shirt is just a few shades darker than her eyes. “Yes. Since I was such a good girl, Kujiragi awarded me the freedom to walk the halls unguarded.” She moves closer to Izaya, nothing in her posture threatening but somehow the intent is there. Izaya stays planted in the doorframe, refusing to lose ground. He’s far from afraid of her, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous. She was, after all, in solitary because she used her mind control ability Kujiragi had given her to force a number of guards and subjects to attack each other. 

“Probably an unwise choice on her part,” Izaya says.

“Probably,” Haruna agrees easily, no change in the light upturn of her lips. “But, Izaya-kun, you’ve been far more mean than me. You helped someone try to escape, when you promised you’d help me escape.”

Izaya raises a delicate eyebrow. He expected to deal with an angry Haruna, but not this soon. Kujiragi’s always unintentionally making things harder on him. “I assure you, I had no hand in any escape attempt, Haruna-san. It’s not my fault a boy tried to escape on his own.”

Haruna is still smiling. She taps on the window with short fingernails. Kujiragi always makes sure to keep any weapons from Haruna’s grasp, though it can be difficult when Haruna uses her own body. “You have a hand in most things that go on around here, Izaya-kun. I know I was in solitary, but it was really unfair that you didn’t wait for me.”

Izaya watches her hands, because just a drop of his blood and Haruna can control his every action. He will never lose his mind to someone else, never. He just learned that even Kujiragi does not have influence over his mind, thanks to Shizuo, and he’ll never let anyone have control like that over him. “I still have a plan for you, Haruna-san. Kida-kun was merely a test run.”

Haruna’s smile grows, crazed mania twisting her lips up, displaying teeth. “I don’t believe you.”

“What’s goin’ on here?” Shizuo grunts from behind Izaya, completely throwing his guard off. He was too focused on Haruna to notice Shizuo getting out of his bed. He stares dumbly at Shizuo, who just glances at him then to the red-eyed girl. “Who’re you?”

“Ah, Shizuo-san.” Haruna smiles easily at him. “We fought in the arena once. I lost.” She turns and walks down the hallway without another word. 

Shizuo scratches his head and looks at Izaya like he expects him to clarify what the hell just happened. Izaya’s not entirely sure himself, but Haruna’s not happy with him, that’s for sure. Izaya takes less than a second to recover himself and grins for Shizuo. “Did you have a nice nap?” 

Shizuo frowns at him, something calculating out behind those brown eyes. “What happened?”

Sighing, Izaya goes back into the room, sitting on Shizuo’s bed even though he’s uncomfortable with the warmth still lingering from Shizuo. He’s displaying ownership, that’s all. “You fainted. Shinra said it was because you’ve been barely eating, and the drugs Shingen has you on makes not eating dangerous, because of side effects.”

Shizuo follows him, sitting on the floor, their positions now switched. His eyes light up with understanding. “Oh! You said your ribs are better now, right?”

Izaya rests his chin on his hand, yet again losing the battle of following the beast’s train of thought. He’d usually be ecstatic that someone was worrying this much for him, because of the manipulation that could be had with that, but Shizuo’s concern just makes him… uncomfortable. “Yes, my ribs are better now,” he answers, sighing. “Normally, it takes much longer to heal from an injury like that, but some of the experimental healing drugs here seem to be competent.”

Shizuo doesn’t respond, just leans back on his hands and relaxes into a satisfied expression. Izaya watches the window, the memory of red eyes still peering at him. He has too many enemies here, and not enough methods to protect himself. Kujiragi’s drugs, the cameras and guards everywhere, put him at quite a disadvantage. 

A groan brings Izaya’s attention back to Shizuo. “Man, I’m hungry. What time is it? When’s the next food period?”

Izaya glances at the wall clock, which Shizuo easily could have done. Maybe he doesn’t know how to read it. That certainly wouldn’t surprise Izaya. “You just missed lunch.”

“Damn…” Shizuo grumbles. For some reason, Izaya finds himself relieved that Shizuo wants to eat again, after making himself faint from a week of starvation. Such a monster, to have scared off Haruna even while weak and half-starved… 

It occurs to Izaya that he has the perfect bodyguard right in front of him.


	16. Exhausted Discomforts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, endless thanks to my beta, the marvelous Guuzenkamo! Please go read her stuff, it's so, so good. Seriously, I mean it. 
> 
> Sorry I update so sporadically OTL

“You know what really sucks? I don’t remember what actual food tastes like,” Tom says, poking at the questionable contents of his tray. Today a guess can’t even be made of what real food it’s supposed to resemble. The mush slops off of Tom’s fork like contaminated sludge.

Shizuo grunts in agreement, ignoring the sludge for the still unappealing but less so cups of preserved fruit. “Vorona at an experiment?”

Tom shrugs. “Probably. You’re Shingen’s, you’d know better than me.” He braves a bite of the ‘food’, immediately violently shuddering, but swallows it anyway.

“Even when I was fully Shingen’s, I barely ever saw her,” Shizuo says, chewing on his fork, a way of procrastinating another bite of tasteless fruit. Better tasteless than whatever flavor Tom is grimacing at now, at least. “How on earth are you still eating that?”

Tom forces down another spoonful of sludge. “Better than starving,” he says. “Even if it tastes awful, it’s probably got everything we need to stay healthy. They do want us in tip-top shape so they can mess with our bodies without any ‘confounding variables’.” He pauses, then tacks on, “I’m glad you’re eating again.”

Running his hands through his hair, Shizuo slumps his shoulders. “I know, I’m sorry. This place just makes me want to crawl the fucking walls sometimes, ya know?”

“Yeah…” Tom stares at his plate, his fork playing with the mush again. “You seem to be pretty tied up with Orihara lately.”

At that, Shizuo just groans. He slides his tray aside and rests his head on the cool metal table. “I don’t even know, Tom-san. He shows up absolutely everywhere I am, unless it’s a food period or experiment. When he’s not around, I worry about him because he always gets himself into trouble, but when he is around I just want to _strangle him_.”

“Well, I guess that’s better than before? I mean, before you would be twisting this table into a modern art piece at the mere thought of him. What changed?”

This conversation is way too frustrating. Shizuo rakes his hands through his hair again, scraping his scalp with nails, just barely enough to hurt. “I learned more about him?” Shizuo struggles to put his thoughts into words. It’s never been his strength. That’s always been his muscles, not his brain. “I learned that he’s a human. Just a fucked up one. I mean, I beat the shit out of people. I knew he was fucked up before… but now he’s less fucked up? God, I don’t know.”

Tom thoughtfully takes another bite of mush, then remembers the awful taste. After a bit of gagging and clearing his throat, Tom responds, “Don’t worry about it so much. This whole facility’s got a way of amplifying crazy. We’re all really just trying to get by.”

“Yeah…” Shizuo agrees noncommittally. Whatever the fuck is going on with him and Izaya, it’s far too complicated for his mind to wrap around. He has to simplify things or he’ll explode and smack someone through a wall. Or throw another bed through a window. Or any number of Bad Things.

He scans the room for Izaya, something of a habit now. The annoying bastard didn’t show up for lunch. He hadn’t been there for breakfast either. Hopefully he’s not drugged in some hallway again. Dammit.

“See you for dinner, Tom-san,” Shizuo says. Tom waves bye to him because he’s got a mouthful of the horrible sludge. Shizuo leaves the table, dumping his half empty tray in the dish return.

He really doesn’t want to seek out the flea, but dammit he’s so irritated when he doesn’t know if Izaya’s still breathing or not. Fucking danger magnet asshole. He checks the dorm first, which is only occupied by the three teens, so then he goes to the rec room.

Unsurprisingly, there’s Izaya. Reading in the corner like the pathetic lonely bastard he is. A number of books are piled beside him. Shizuo flops down next to him, making himself comfortable, making sure to be obnoxious so that Izaya has to stop reading.

“Why haven’t you eaten today?” Shizuo asks, almost angrily, even though he’s relaxing now that he can see that Izaya is not in danger of immediate bodily harm.

Izaya studies him, eyes somehow more brown in this light. “I’m nauseous. Can’t eat.”

“You’re always nauseous. You have to eat at some point.”

“The disgusting excuse for ‘food’ here certainly doesn’t help. I’d just throw it up,” Izaya states dispassionately, eyes going back to his book. 

Shizuo can’t argue with that. He likes Izaya in this mood better; when he’s not manic and constantly trying to ruin the lives of small children. In this mood, all Izaya wants is to be left alone to observe from the sidelines. And right now his target is his book.

This is one of the few times it’s easy to get on Izaya’s nerves, so Shizuo takes his opportunity. All he has to do is keep talking, keep distracting Izaya from his precious words on paper. “Have you told Kujiragi about the nausea?”

Izaya looks back to him, already frowning. The irritated slant of his eyebrows means Shizuo is winning. “Yes. It’s a side effect of the drugs she has me on. She won’t do anything about it. Shinra gives me stuff, but it doesn’t help.”

“How heartless.” Shizuo grins. Izaya pisses him off so often, it’s wonderful to turn the tables on him.

Izaya sighs and sets his book down. “Fine, Shizu-chan, I’ll pay attention to you. You usually can’t wait to get rid of _me_.”

“I’m in a good mood,” Shizuo says, leaning back against the wall. A cigarette sounds so good right now… “You really should eat though. You’ll faint, like I did. And everyone here hates your guts, so someone’ll stab you while you’re passed out.”

“Shizu-chan will protect me if I faint,” Izaya says and smiles. He pulls his knees to his chest and rests his cheek on them. “I don't remember what it's like to feel comfortable in my own body.” He pauses, frowning into the main area of the rec room, past the bookshelves. “Oh. I think I understand now. Your strength… That’s what it’s like, right?”

Those brown-red of his eyes watch Shizuo. He’s so caught in Izaya’s expression that he can’t think of a response. “Yeah…” tumbles past his lips. His brain is frozen because Izaya _understands_. He understands like no one else has. How sometimes you just want to reach out of your own flesh because it doesn’t help you anyway. How your soul doesn’t match your body. You feel like you’ll never, ever be comfortable no matter how you arrange yourself, so used to the ache that it’s an ever-present background noise you’ve learned to ignore. Most of the time. 

Izaya raises one of his brows at Shizuo’s disgruntled response, but decides to go back to his book. Shizuo forces himself to calm, getting up to grab a book for himself. He feels disconnected, because of his response to a simple statement Izaya barely even thought about. What was that overreaction? He shakes his head, whipping his hair around his eyes, before he settles back down next to Izaya.

He’s really not that entertained by reading, but he wants something to distract himself with instead of just watching an immobile Izaya read for hours. After a while, Shizuo notices that Izaya has moved closer, little by little. He’s slouching a bit, eyes heavy, but still straining to slowly read the letters in his book.

It’s… that’s cute. Fuck. How can a fucked up asshole like him be cute?? Well, he’s not murderous right now, just trying to stay awake like a kid too excited to get to the end of a story.

Izaya apparently loses the fight with his eyelids, and he leans against Shizuo. He can feel light, warm breath on his shoulder. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Why… does he feel so warm? There’s a slow intake of heavy breath from Izaya, and Shizuo’s abdomen… _twists_. 

Does he like guys?? He’s never really thought about doing… things… with a woman. But now all he can think about is Izaya’s breath, his mouth…

What. Fuck. Is he really attracted to Izaya? FUCK.

Somehow, in his addled brain, he decides to very gently shift Izaya so they’re both more comfortable. He’s not prepared to have a meltdown the entire span of Izaya’s nap, but it looks like that’s what’s happening now. Fuck.


	17. Too Much, Too Close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First part of this chapter is dedicated to sushibunny, who comments on nearly every single chapter <3
> 
> I... am terrible at shippy/fluffy stuff. All I can do is angst ._.

Izaya’s neck aches. His collar is pinched between his chin and shoulder awkwardly, and has been for a while judging by the dull pain. The discomfort is pulling him back to consciousness, slowly. He shifts so that he can stay in blissful unawareness, and the relief from the crick in his neck is so nice that he sighs.

He vaguely becomes aware of the strangeness of what he’s resting on, though. He doesn’t usually fall asleep sitting up, and the surface he’s on is so lumpy… and so warm. So comfortable.

And breathing. Hmm?

He fights to blink his eyes open, still struggling out of the lethargy. His breath hitches when he figures out he’s being pinned down, brain snapping awake to deal with the possible danger. He looks up a chest—blue shirt?— to find blond hair.

Oh god. This is worse, so much worse than finding a cackling Izumii or giggling Haruna. He immediately shoves against Shizuo’s chest, but of course it does nothing. The damn brute is passed out, mouth parted in sleep and arms tightly snug around Izaya.

Izaya continues to fruitlessly struggle against Shizuo’s monster limbs. How did this even happen? Why was he asleep on Shizuo, and why is the protozoan _snuggling him?!_

“Shizu-chan!” he hisses desperately. His breathing spikes, as does his anxiety. He’s trapped under arms that can easily crush his chest cavity, cave his ribs into his organs, and he’s absolutely powerless to it. It’s too warm; their combined heat building off of each other and he’s being smothered by it. 

Shizuo grunts, finally showing signs of consciousness. His arms move a bit, down Izaya’s back, but don’t let him go. Izaya’s not entirely in Shizuo’s lap, kind of draped over his leg, so he tries to wiggle free but Shizuo’s hold tightens.

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya repeats, “Let me go.” He’s about to have an oversensitivity attack, his breath is so rapid he can barely get the words out.

Shizuo grumbles, eyes slowly opening to stare at Izaya in incomprehension. Izaya’s frantic request must register somewhere in that tiny, stupid brain, and he finally, _finally_ moves his arms so that Izaya can escape.

He slips back from the beast as far as he can, which isn’t all that far, as a bookcase stops him. Just not being pressed up against that warm body is enough, the air cooling down his sweaty skin.

“What's the problem?” Shizuo grumbles, eyes half-lidded. 

“The _problem_?” Izaya snarls, hands clutching his opposite arms. “The problem is you _mauling me_.”

“What?” Shizuo asks, waking up more with indignation. “ _You_ fell asleep on _me_!”

Izaya’s anger is briefly replaced with confusion, but he quickly shoves it away, _being comfortable enough to actually fall asleep on Shizuo does not mean anything,_ “The drugs make me terribly lethargic,” he says, quite possibly to convince himself just as much as Shizuo. “That doesn’t mean you can take advantage of me.”

“Take advantage!” Shizuo repeats in disbelief. He moves closer to Izaya, who’s still trapped up against the bookcase. Izaya’s hands are trembling slightly, and he’s very, very uncomfortable with Shizuo’s proximity. “You’ve been sticking around me like a fucking annoying parasite, what do you fucking want from me?” 

Whatever will get Shizuo away from the cuddling subject, Izaya happily latches onto. “I’m using you as a bodyguard,” he says bluntly. Might as well get it out there, Shizuo’s basically been acting like one all on his own anyway. 

“Those people that attacked you in the hallway?” Shizuo asks. He doesn’t seem all that surprised that Izaya has ulterior motives. Probably just expects it. He actually appears to be relaxing a bit with the knowledge, leaning back against another bookcase and giving Izaya more space.

“No, I handled them. For the most part. Many people here would like to harm me, but the most dangerous one currently out for my delectable blood is Niekawa-san. The girl with long hair and red eyes,” he tacks on the end because of Shizuo’s _who the fuck is that_ look. 

“Ah,” Shizuo says after a moment of contemplating his limited memory. “She looked almost as crazy as you.”

Izaya heaves out a long-suffering sigh, finally at ease enough to lean forward and drop his hands from his knees. Insults are a fantastic way to make this conversation feel more normal.“So mean, Shizu-chan. So you’ll protect me from the scary girl with your beast-like strength?”

“Tch.” Shizuo pulls a book from the shelf behind his arm and flips it open. “Whatever.”

How cute. He’s trying to look disinterested. It’s like finding a kitten hiding behind the curtains because you spotted a very obvious lump. He chuckles at the image and grabs a couple books from his reading pile. He stands, enjoying the lovely feeling of stretching his legs after napping all curled up. 

Stupid, stupid Shizu-chan. Izaya grinds his teeth as he starts to put his books back on their appropriate shelves. He wouldn’t believe that he fell asleep on Shizuo, but the damn brute is so idiotically honest. He can see Shizuo’s eyes following him through gaps in the bookshelves, which is even more frustrating. 

Dammit, he was just exhausted from all the drugs and experiments, not eating… his stomach twists at the thought, but he can’t tell if it’s from hunger or just more nausea. Thinking about eating just makes him feel more and more like he’ll throw up, so he decides to just suffer through it for longer, probably the rest of the day.

He catches sight of Izumii standing outside the window to the rec room. He had appeased Izumii with more cigarette deals, so it’s not at all surprising to see him grinning there like the maniac he is. His absolute disloyalty to his little brother really is so charming. 

“See you later, Shizu-chan,” Izaya calls through the bookshelf reserved for mythology, placing back his last book.

Shizuo scrambles up. “Where are you going? I thought you just said you wanted me to be your bodyguard.”

Izaya can’t help but to grin at that. So sweet. So perfectly working to his plans. “I’m fine. Niekawa-san is currently at an experiment with Kujiragi-san.”

Shizuo frowns, so Izaya waves him off and skips out of the rec room. “Izumii-san, you want more already?”

“A non-smoker wouldn’t understand,” Izumii sighs, shaking his head like Izaya is beyond hope, a sinner in his smoke-free zone. “I’ll pick the spot today.”

“Go ahead, Izumii-san,” Izaya gestures for him to lead the way, glancing through the rec room window. He waves happily to the grumpy-faced Shizuo, still standing awkwardly by the bookcases in the back. 

The hall that Izumii leads them to, after a quick stop at Shinra’s dorm for Izaya’s trading cigarettes, is suitable enough. There is a working camera, but it’s placed slightly askew, just enough that appropriate positioning can keep the two mostly out of view. 

As Izaya hands Izumii the cigarettes, the scarred man’s eyes flash scarlet and Izaya’s slammed against the wall. Fuck, goddamn deja-vu. Izumii’s grin, right in Izaya’s face, is even more sinister than usual, perhaps because his eyes are bright red and blank from the loss of his free will. His hands are around Izaya’s throat, so he can’t speak, not that it’d matter. 

Can Haruna really control someone from so far away? Maybe her experiment ended early? When did she even get in contact with Izumii? Kujiragi keeps her on a very short leash… but she did get out to go antagonize Izaya just the other day. 

Izumii pulls Izaya along the wall, to the door close by. Izaya lashes out at Izumii when he has to use one hand to open the door, but Izumii just slams his head into the wall, momentarily incapacitating him. Izumii tosses him down onto the floor just inside the room and straddles him.

It’s definitely a supply room, shelves of various cleaning supplies and some larger lab equipment visible even in the darkness. Izaya was really a fool to not notice something so dangerous. It’s hard to attack a subject even in a blind spot, because the space is so small. But in here Haruna can do whatever she wants to him, and she doesn’t have to worry about being caught on any camera. 

Izumii pulls handcuffs and rope from a nearby shelf. “Mother can’t wait to play with you, Izaya-kun,” he says with menacing softness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy repetition Batman! Izaya's in trouble again. I can only stay interested if violence is happening D:


	18. Necrotoxin

Izaya wakes in the storage room, an indiscernible amount of time has passed from when Izumii threw him in here and chloroformed him. He’s tied up on the floor, yet again. At least he’s not being tortured with sound this time. He tests the cuffs locked around his wrists. Izumii locked them tight enough that they’ll definitely leave bruises, but that’s the least of his worries.

Haruna could be here at any moment, and that would be the end of his free will. His every action dictated by a borderline psychotic teenage girl obsessed with her old teacher. He might as well be dead.

Well, this is exciting. He’s cuffed, gagged, arms tied to his torso and that rope tied to a metal shelving unit, waiting for someone literally thirsting for his blood. Nothing like some danger to get said targeted blood singing. Ah, what a wonderful feeling. Just anticipating the kind of expression Haruna will make tickles his spine.

He struggles to sit up, reveling in the fact that this time his brain is working with him instead of against him. He still can’t quite dig to the root of what will set off his unwelcome panic attacks. It can’t be when people surprise him, because that just entertains him more. Seeing no immediate chance of winning, maybe? Of course not, there’s always some way to win.

This storage room is a goldmine. There’s all manner of supplies from toiletries to spare beakers to a pile of mattresses in the back of the room. How did Izumii/Haruna even get access to this room? Did one of them steal a key somehow? Haruna must have control over at least one of the guards. What a truly powerful ability. Too bad Kujiragi gave it to Haruna and Anri instead of him. Meh, having complete control over someone is boring anyway.

He gets to a sitting position, which ends up painfully twisting the rope around his chest, but he has an eye on the glass beakers a couple shelves above him. He tries rocking the shelving unit by pushing his back against it, but it’s bolted to the ground. Shizuo’s strength sure would come in handy… Though he would just break the rope and handcuffs. Oh, bother.

At least being long and skinny will work. Finally something that works to his advantage. He lies back down and stretches a leg out, swiping a couple beakers off after some painful struggling. He tries to dodge the falling beakers, but his movement is extremely limited, the pops of shattering glass too close to his head for comfort. One beaker lands directly on his arms, because of how they’re tied behind him, to the metal post of the shelving unit. The shards slide across his skin, and warm wetness drips down his hands. Fantastic, now he’s made it even easier for Haruna to get his blood. Might as well make it a fair fight, he supposes.

He snatches onto a piece of particularly pointy glass, slicing his hand further, but it’s fine. More blood won’t make a difference. It takes a bit of careful, awkward positioning to free himself from the shelf, and then to get the rope off of his torso. Not much can be done about the cuffs just yet…

Right as he stands, the storage room door whispers open. Haruna smiles at him, eyes glowing in the semi-darkness. She closes the door behind her, not at all visibly perturbed that her captive is in the middle of escaping. 

“So mean, Izaya-kun,” Haruna says.

Using his shoulder, he drags the disgusting cloth from his mouth. Izumii did a rather terrible job of tying him up. Can’t blame him, he obviously wasn’t in his conscious mind. “I’m afraid I’ll have to cut my visit short if this is how you treat your guests, Haruna-san.”

Her smile grows, eyes unblinking. Even Izaya finds her quite ominous from an objective standpoint. “You won’t help me, so I’ll just have to make you.”

~

“Shizuo-kun, have you seen Izaya?” Shinra asks, poking his head into the dorm room. 

“No,” Shizuo grunts. He’s on his bed, facing the wall, and he doesn’t bother to turn and face Shinra.

“He didn’t show up for his experiment with Kujiragi… I’ve checked the usual places. No one’s seen him for a couple hours.”

A small bit of worry crawls up his spine despite himself. Goddammit why is the flea always in trouble? The bastard even said he wasn’t in danger… He thought he’d learned by now to never trust what Izaya says, but apparently he hasn’t. 

He grudgingly stands and follows Shinra out of the dorm. “I last saw him with that guy with a huge scar on his face.”

“Izumii? Hmm…” Shinra abruptly stops and Shizuo barely keeps himself from crashing into him. “I’ve already checked the cameras, so I’ll use the tracker in his collar…” There’s nothing worried, everything casual, in his speech and movement as he takes a tablet from his pocket.  
Shizuo knows Shinra cares about Izaya somewhere in that weird head of his. Deep, deep down. Maybe it’s in his nature to just let Izaya get away with all the shit that he does, and to even attentively nurse his many wounds to the point of babying, but Shinra does treat Izaya differently from other people. It might be wishful thinking, but there’s something not quite caring but possibly tender in his usually carefully innocent eyes. 

“This way,” Shinra says, watching his tablet screen as he heads off. Shizuo stares at the retreating lab coat, mulling over the oddity that Shinra is having a test subject follow him for something like this rather than the security guards. It could be for Izaya’s benefit, again, if he’s doing something against the rules. He catches up to Shinra before he can get too far. Surprisingly enough, he finds that his desire to make sure Izaya’s okay is stronger than his desire to follow the rules.

The many turns and too similar hallways quickly leaves Shizuo at a loss for where they are in the facility. He has no idea if he’s been to this section before, or maybe it’s even somewhere he frequents, he can’t tell. Each step builds anxiety in his chest, as memories of how battered Izaya was after he was drugged by the still unknown subjects resurface in his mind. They walk down a long corridor. Bruises wrapped around Izaya’s ribs like an embrace. They turn left. Tubes all along Izaya’s arms. Then right. Tears spill from Izaya’s eyes as fear and anger spill from his lips.

Shinra stops, yet again forcing Shizuo to skirt around him to avoid a crash. Shizuo’s first thought is to yell at him, but the confusion on Shinra’s face stops him.

“Weird,” He mutters, then looks up. “Shizuo-kun, see that door? Izaya’s signal is coming from there. It’s a supply closet and no subjects should have the keys.”

Shizuo doesn’t hesitate, too riled from the images in his mind. He tries the knob, too frantic to even register if it’s locked or not, twists it off and shoves open the door. 

The first thing that Shizuo sees is that Izaya is breathing. More than breathing, but taunting the woman hovering over him, unsurprisingly. He’s on the ground, backed against a shelf, as the creepy woman from the other day steps closer to him. Shizuo can only tell because of her long hair, and when she glances over her shoulder to confront the intruder, her scarlet eyes confirm it. 

“Get away from him,” Shizuo growls. He can’t quite grasp the details of the situation, but it’s threatening enough that anger seeps into his veins. The room is too dim for him to properly gauge whether Izaya is injured or not, but he’s positioned awkwardly on the ground. 

The woman only smiles. Her hand dips, Shizuo now noticing the glass vial held loosely between her fingers. He launches himself at her but he’s not fast enough. The vial has already tipped too far when Shizuo snatches her wrist and the contents spill onto Izaya.

Izaya screams and Shizuo snaps the thin wrist between his fingers. He’s never heard Izaya scream before. His first thought is to get the woman as far away from Izaya as possible, so he throws her to the other side of the room. She slams into a shelf, plastic bottles scattering everywhere, and Shizuo stomps after her. His anger will hurt the woman who hurt Izaya. His brain empties all but the need to destroy the person that forced Izaya to make such a sound.

She’s trying to pick herself out of the rubble around the shelf, but Shizuo grabs her head. He slams her face into the ground, drops of blood smearing. He’d slam her down again, even though her body is now limp, but Izaya’s pained moans turn into laughter. 

The laughter is half-hysterical and full of pain. He leaves the unconscious woman to check on Izaya. As he approaches, Izaya just laughs and laughs and laughs and it raises the hair on Shizuo’s arms. He’s left disoriented from his mind’s rapid switch from empty anger to empty confusion. 

Izaya’s still on the ground, and Shizuo can see now that his arms are tied behind him. Whatever was in the vial had splashed over Izaya’s left shoulder. The material of his shirt has melted away to reveal a mass of indiscernible red. Fuck. Fuck, he has to do something. He reaches for Izaya, body trembling from the laughter still spilling from his mouth or the horrible pain he must be in or both, but he hesitates for fear of harming him further. His hands have never healed, never comforted, only broken. 

“Shizuo, don’t touch him!” 

The shout causes him to withdraw further, stepping back, as his fear is confirmed. Shinra rushes past him, several guards on his heels. He hovers over Izaya, directing the guards to pick him up without touching his shoulder. Izaya is carried out, still cackling like it’s hilarious how much horrible pain he’s in. Shinra follows, attention only on Izaya. More guards drag the crazy woman out. 

Shizuo doesn’t even feel the hands on his arms and back, guiding him out of the storage closet and down a different hallway than Izaya has gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone that has commented, all of you are wonderful, wonderful people! I try to reply to most but I don't always get everyone, just please know that I really appreciate each and every comment! I go back and read them sometimes, and it gives me such a motivation boost <3


	19. Mindful Melting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost caved and left the slow burn in the dust, but my beta said to keep torturing you guys. I'd be fine with that if it didn't also torture meeeeeeee......
> 
> Much thanks to Guuzenkamo for keeping me in check :P This fic would be an inarticulate mess without her.

“Stop laughing or I'll sedate you,” Shinra demands on the way to his lab.

Izaya's mouth snaps shut, small giggles still escaping. He isn't entirely sure why he had started laughing in the first place, that white hot agony spilling down his shoulder, along his neck, it quickly became a thing of relief. The laughter was the only thing his overwhelmed body could do. It had been funny to see Shizuo slam Haruna into unconsciousness, and then he couldn't seem to stop. It was like his body had wanted to scream but his mind wouldn’t let it, and laughter was just the bizarre byproduct. 

When they reach Shinra’s lab, the doctor immediately shoves Izaya under a showerhead in the corner. Izaya sputters, the sudden water is _freezing_. The immense relief as his burn is rinsed out is horrifically short, the pain slowly coming back in full force. Izaya struggles not to start laughing again as his shoulder stays burning hot while a chill settles into the rest of his body. He tries to move away from the icy water but Shinra holds him there, his grip painful. He’d never allow Shinra to manhandle him like this if he wasn’t in so much pain. Plus he’s still handcuffed, so that certainly doesn’t help. 

“This water’s ice cold, Shinra,” Izaya barely manages to get out between chattering teeth. Shinra’s too busy cutting off the rest of his damaged shirt. He cuts off his pants and underwear too. Izaya’s been naked in front of Shinra too much to be embarrassed, but it’s still too vulnerable a state when coupled by intense pain. Izaya tries to move away from the water again when Shinra throws the tatters in a biohazard bin, but Shinra pushes him back. He had gotten keys from somewhere while Izaya was distracted, and he unlocks the cuffs from Izaya’s wrists. 

“Did any get in your eyes?” Shinra asks, snatching Izaya’s chin and forcing his head around to examine his face and neck. The movement hurts, some of his neck must have gotten splashed too. The stupid metal collar wasn’t even good protection for his skin. 

He definitely would have felt that horrible liquid in his eyes. “No. Shinra, it’s _cold._ ”

Shinra adjusts a knob on the shower pipe and the water becomes slightly more bearable. Just slightly. “You need to stay under this for 10 more minutes,” he says unapologetically. 

He’s doing this on purpose. Rough treatment from Shinra is usually hilarious because it means the doctor is either having fun or is irritated, but not when he hurts this much.

Ten minutes is too much to handle and Izaya is giggling again before it’s over. Shinra pats him down with a towel, and although he’s very careful with his shoulder, Izaya is full-blown laughing again by the end of it. Discovering that Shinra is sopping wet because of him had triggered the laughter, and the pain and cold kept it going.

Shinra pushes him down onto an examination table, none too gently. The extra pain cuts off his laughter. “Ow, ow, ow! Shinra stop!”

“I know this is somehow your own fault,” Shinra says, his hands just as rough on Izaya, possibly more. Never tell a sadist you’re hurting. 

Izaya pouts to the best of his ability, his face a grimace of pain, his whole body still shivering violently. “You don't know that.”

“Shut up,” Shinra says with a smile. 

So, Shinra’s irritated, not having fun. And it’s the angry kind of irritated. He can only tell that Shinra is angry because of how long he’s known him. His face and voice are his usual pleasant, but the nonchalance is gone from his movements and his choice of words, though said brightly, have a bite to them. Shinra normally couldn’t care less when Izaya’s injured. Wow, is he actually worried? That’s… different. He stores that away for later because Shinra is poking at his wounded shoulder. 

“Well, at least you’re in pain,” Shinra grumbles. He moves away to rummage around in cabinets and drawers. 

“Why is that a good thing?” Izaya snaps. Maybe he was wrong and Shinra really is just having fun torturing him. He really wouldn’t put it past the doctor. The cold clutching at his muscles is starting to become too much. 

“Because it means it’s not third-degree. You don’t want to ruin your nerves, do you?” Shinra asks, way too chipper. He comes back with a bottle of white cream, bandage wraps, and a heated blanket. As soon as Shinra smooths some of the cream on his shoulder, the intense relief pulls a sigh from deep in Izaya’s chest, tension melting from his form. It cools his damaged skin in a way that the freezing water didn’t.

Shinra tosses the heated blanket over Izaya’s legs, then takes his time to softly massage the cream over all of Izaya’s burn. It starts at his neck, curves around his collar bone and some of his shoulder blade, and follows his arm all the way down to his elbow.

“Now where did Niekawa-san get sulfuric acid…” Shinra mumbles to himself. Izaya barely hears him. Finally warm, Shinra rubbing slow circles into his arm… an ache is there but it’s such a wonderful change from the hot agony that Izaya can’t stop a groan. 

He melts into that strange euphoria of consuming relief, safe in the oddly gentle care of his friend that probably doesn’t consider him a friend. 

~

He’d be surprised if he didn’t wake with Shizuo next to his bed. 

The monster leans back in that same ripped up chair, arms crossed, not even looking at him. How long has he even been here? A while, judging by how bored he looks, sunken into the chair like a forgotten book slowly sinking into a pillow. 

His shoulder is burning. There’s a stupid IV in his arm, of course, and the usual heart rate monitor on his finger. At least Shinra put that on silent this time. He shifts slightly and the thin sheet covering him scrapes along his damaged flesh. The small pained noise is enough to alert Shizuo to his new state of consciousness. He straightens up in his chair and scoots closer. 

“Ah, how are you feeling?” Shizuo asks, that confusing, borderline obnoxious worry laced in his voice. He sets more pillows up behind Izaya’s back so he can sit up, and Izaya clenches his teeth in order to not groan through the process. 

He compares Shizuo’s soft hands on his arms to the memory of his violent hands around his neck, which feels so long ago but really isn’t. It’s not surprising when Shizuo is gentle with him now, but it’s still disgruntling. “Fantastic.”

“Shinra said that you have a fever,” Shizuo says, “because the acid got in some of the open wounds on your arm.”

Now that Shizuo mentions it, he does feel kind of overheated. The fever must have broke, or is on a downswing. The heating blanket is still wrapped around his legs, which are disgustingly sweaty. He struggles to kick it off until he realizes that he’s still naked underneath the blanket. God _dammit_ Shinra. 

“Yeah, I definitely feel the fever,” Izaya says, trying very hard to sound nonchalant. Sure, Shizuo’s seen him naked plenty of times in the showers, but… in this situation it’s uncomfortable. His brain jumps back to when he fell asleep on Shizuo and… no, just no. “Could you turn off the heating blanket?”

Shizuo grunts a positive and fumbles around with the cords surrounding the bed until he finds the switch for the blanket. He then picks up the same bottle of white cream Shinra had yesterday and twists it open. “Shinra told me to put some cream on your burn when you woke up.”

He’s really going to murder Shinra. He’s not being subtle about pushing Shizuo on him at all, and the blond idiot doesn’t even realize it. What the hell is Shinra even trying to _do?_ Besides annoy the hell out of him?

“Thanks but I can do that, Shizu-chan~” Izaya says, masking his anxiety with a happy sing-song voice. His shoulder and arm hurt enough as it is, he doesn’t need the beast making it worse with his excessive strength…

“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” Shizuo counters easily, scooping some cream into his hand and smoothing it over Izaya’s shoulder before he can protest. The intense, instant relief forces a sigh from him before he can stop it. 

Shizuo’s hands are exceptionally soft and hesitant on his damaged skin. He’s positive there’s a strong pain killer in the cream, because even with how gentle Shizuo is being, even just a slight bit of displaced air had hurt immensely just a moment ago. Now Shizuo massages the cream just light enough that his body relaxes. 

“You didn’t get in trouble for nearly murdering Haruna-san?” Izaya asks, closing his eyes despite himself as Shizuo smooths the tension from his muscles. 

Shizuo makes a small non-committal noise. “No, but they did take me to solitary for a bit. Until Shinra told them I was just trying to keep the crazy woman from offing ‘important experimental material.’” Shizuo pauses for a bit, directing his hands higher, carefully massaging around Izaya’s collar bone. Izaya can’t help another contented sigh. “Why was she trying to kill you?” Shizuo asks.

“She wasn’t,” Izaya says, arching his neck a bit to give Shizuo better access. Everything about Shizuo’s hands on him is wrong and shouldn’t be happening but it feels far, far too wonderful. “She can control people when she ingests their blood. She was angry with me, wanted to control me. She swiped at me a couple times, backed me against the shelf. Then she heard you and Shinra outside the door and slipped the vial from her pocket. I thought she had intended it for you, but it’s fascinating that she dropped it on me instead.” Her expression had been marvelous. When she tipped the vial, and when Shizuo slammed her skull into the floor.

When she knew she was caught, instead of a last ditch effort to get his blood, she had settled on just harming him. Revenge, a petty sense of satisfaction. Even if Izaya doesn’t consider her to be human anymore, because of her non-human abilities, she’s still so, so entertaining. 

Shizuo groans at him. “Fascinating? That she threw acid on you and burned half your arm off? You’re so fucked in the head.”

Izaya grins, just for Shizu-chan. “You’re the one staying by my bedside, seeking out my company, talking to me, and applying medicine to my injuries. You beat someone into the ground for me. What does that make you?”

“Just as fucked, I guess,” Shizuo snorts. His response is so _companionable_ that Izaya is suddenly very uncomfortable. _You beat someone into the ground for me._ The hands running along his shoulder are sublime but too intimate. Especially with nothing but a blanket covering his body. 

“Why were you even with Shinra in the first place?” Izaya asks, hoping the desperation to derail his current line of thoughts isn’t obvious. Shizuo’s not following the rules. Their conversations are supposed to be built on insults only. 

“Shinra was worried about you. He probably brought me instead of guards in case you were doing something against the rules, like usual.” Shizuo leans Izaya forward just a little to access his shoulder blade. The relief from the burning now just makes him feel vulnerable, somehow. “He’s a good guy. Sometimes I worry he isn’t, but he is. He cares about you.”

Izaya moves his eyes to stare at the ceiling, but he doesn’t reply. He doesn’t want to talk about Shinra. His relationship with Shinra is complicating itself, somehow, and he’s not sure what to make of it yet. He’d tell Shizuo that Shinra really isn’t a nice guy because of how he had tortured him with ice water yesterday, but he had also relieved his pain, made him comfortable, and stayed with him until he fell asleep. Sure, he had saved Izaya’s life too many times to count, but a doctor doesn’t have to care about someone to give them medical care. He’d known for a long time that Shinra didn’t care about him, but now…

He cuts his thoughts off, as too much confusion rises to the surface of his mind. That same, unexplained feeling that he’s been plagued with recently scratches around his throat. 

He knows that this feeling will never leave if he doesn’t voice the words that it wants. “Why do you keep helping me, Shizu-chan?” Izaya asks, voice neutral, eyes still trained on the white, unblemished ceiling.

Shizuo’s hands pause, then continue around his neck, careful of his collar. So different from that arena battle. How on earth had things flipped from violent to gentle? “Because I care about you.” 

Incredibly, stupidly simple. Of course. “ _Why?_ ” Izaya asks, an edge hardening his voice against his will. The damnable unexplained feeling clutches tighter around his throat, right where Shizuo’s hands have stopped moving. He finally looks at Shizuo’s face, because he can’t stand not knowing what expression he has any longer.

His expression just makes Izaya angry. He’s hesitant, unsure, and most important, his eyes are so open and honest that it _hurts_. He doesn’t just have his heart on his sleeve, he’s taking Izaya’s hand and pressing his beating red heart into his palm. 

For the first time in Izaya’s life, he doesn’t want this kind of power. He knows that he won’t be able to stop his fingers from clenching into a fist.

“I don’t know,” Shizuo finally says.

Izaya doesn’t know either, so he doesn't respond.


	20. Seeking Out Impossibilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was incredibly hard to write >.>

Shizuo doesn’t know why he cares. He just does.

Why does it even need an explanation? It’s a feeling, he has it. Shouldn’t the little parasite just be happy that one less person wants to wring his scrawny neck? Hell, Izaya even admitted to using him as a bodyguard. 

Maybe he somehow figured out that Shizuo is… attracted to him. If that’s the case, Shizuo would be so embarrassed he’d prefer to just transfer back to Shingen. 

Shinra has Izaya on narcotics for the pain. He had seen Tom on narcotics once, and he had been hilariously loopy. Izaya just faintly frowns at him like he’s not entirely sure if he's supposed to be angry at Shizuo or not, then his fever resurfaces and he soon falls back asleep.

Shinra allows him to bring a pile of books from the library the next morning, for Izaya’s entertainment but mostly his because Izaya sleeps most of the day. Izaya is only awake when Shinra comes in to check his medication dosage, and he usually just whines at Shizuo to leave until he runs out of energy and falls back asleep. 

Sometime in the afternoon, Kujiragi walks calmly into the room while Izaya is sleeping. He’s been out for a while, and Shizuo sets the book he had been barely reading down on the side table. 

“There’s a reason he’s under your care, Kishitani-san,” Kujiragi says with no inflection. 

Shinra strides in after her. He heads towards the bed while waving her off and checks the equipment Izaya is hooked up to. “It’s not _my_ fault. You’re the one that let out that basket case. You definitely scrambled her head when you messed around in her brain. And yet again, chemicals were stolen from _your_ lab.”

“She had schizotypal personality disorder prior to my experiments. Solitary will only worsen her mental state, which is important for my research. We’ve already established that I have no control over security.” She approaches Izaya, studies him blankly for a minute and then picks up his wounded arm. Although she’s not rough with his arm, she’s not gentle enough, and Izaya gasps. 

“Careful,” Shizuo warns, standing abruptly, without thinking. Kujiragi looks at him, and the metal around his throat grows cold. She has never used his collar against him, but something about her stoic attitude makes him nervous. 

After a long indiscernible look, a silence that Shizuo is far too afraid to speak into, she turns her attention back to Izaya, and her hands loosen on his skin. She’s actually… listening?

Izaya’s breathing becomes harsh, and he groans, eyes blinking open. He looks at Shizuo first, confused, and the pain that creases his face constricts Shizuo’s chest. He sighs when he notices Kujiragi. “Ah… Was wondering when you’d show up,” he says, not even attempting to hide the exhaustion. Kujiragi gently unwinds a small portion of the bandages on his arm to examine the burn. 

Shizuo snags the edge of Shinra’s lab coat. “What's going on?”

“She wanted to see his burn because she thinks I'm not taking proper care of him! The nerve.”

There’s a strange, muffled whistle, and somehow Shingen has appeared right behind Kujiragi, looking over her shoulder at Izaya’s damaged arm. “The subjects do worse to each other than what we do to them!”

“That’s debatable,” Izaya says, uncomfortably shifting the arm still in Kujiragi’s light grip. 

Shizuo is still reeling from Shingen’s sudden appearance, but Shinra acts like absolutely nothing about his father is out of the ordinary. To him, it really isn’t. “Tou-san, do you need something?”

Shingen claps his hands together, which visibly startles Kujiragi. She silently rewraps Izaya’s arm and moves slightly away. Although she's still nearly emotionless, Shizuo can tell that Shingen's eccentricities throw her off balance. 

“It’s mandatory vacation time!” He exclaims, holding an excited finger up in the air. “All the staff are coming with me to have fun in Europe!”

“What…?” Kujiragi asks, just as Shinra sighs out a small “Not again…”

“I decline your offer--” Kujiragi starts, but Shingen slaps a hand down on her shoulder. 

“Mandatory!” He repeats, and waltzes out the door while she’s trying to protest. Even after spending years under Shingen, Shizuo still can't grow used to his antics. 

Kujiragi frowns at Shinra. “I have time sensitive experiments to run.”

“You know he won’t take no for an answer,” Shinra shrugs, hands out in a sign of defeat. 

Kujiragi turns her attention to Izaya, who has been uncharacteristically quiet. He doesn’t seem to even be paying attention to the conversation. Shizuo sits back down next to him, settling his hand on the bed but carefully not on Izaya. He could be floating off on the pain medication, but it should be wearing off by now, as it’s a little past time for him to take some more. He’s probably hurting again, then, with not enough energy to be his obnoxious self. 

“What medication do you have him on?” Kujiragi turns away to ask Shinra. 

Shinra grumbles something under his breath and hands her a clipboard that he retrieves from a desk in the corner. 

As she reads through the papers, Shizuo moves a bit closer to Izaya. “You okay?”

“Tired,” He says, and he definitely looks it. Even though he’s been sleeping all day, the skin under his eyes is dark, his body melts down into the white cot like he doesn’t have the strength or will to move his muscles. 

“When did you last give him the narcotic?” Kujiragi asks. 

Shinra rolls his eyes for Shizuo and turns back to Kujiragi. “Nine this morning. He should actually be getting the next dose right now.”

She sets a suitcase down, one Shizuo has just now noticed, and takes a small vial and syringe from it. Does she just carry that around with her? Or did she come here with the intention of using it in the first place? “Do not give him more. It will interact with this medication. I’ll have to set him up with an IV while we are away.”

Shizuo watches Izaya’s face as Kujiragi fills the syringe. He’s never seen Izaya this… withdrawn. It seems like more than just exhaustion or pain. He looks away from the bright yellow of Kujiragi as she depresses the syringe into his skin. He’s never known Izaya to look away from humans, from pain or needles or cruelty or apathy. Izaya is an observer, through and through. But he doesn’t watch as Kujiragi experiments on his body. 

Shizuo supposes some things even Izaya cannot handle. It just makes Izaya that much more human. 

~

Izaya frowns at the ladder to the top bed of their shared bunk. “I can’t climb right now,” He says, shifting his arm that is wrapped up in a sling. 

“Oh, yeah,” Shizuo says dumbly. “You can take mine.”

Izaya scrunches his nose but gingerly dumps himself onto Shizuo’s bed anyway. He’s not such a baby to insist on sleeping on the floor rather than Shizuo’s bed. Plus the goddamn IV Kujiragi set him up with is nearly impossible to wrangle up to the top bunk even with two functional arms. 

Shinra said that the mobility of his left arm might be permanently damaged. Unfortunate, but not unmanageable. At least he still has two arms, unlike Kida. 

This situation is awful though. With the scientists-- and Shinra-- gone, all the subjects will be confined to their respective dorms, the only times allowed out for bathroom breaks and meal times. He’s going to be trapped for who knows how long in this small room with Shizuo and a bunch of teenagers, some of which almost murdered him just a bit ago. Being locked in the dorms is the norm for other subjects, so Shizuo probably won’t care much, but it’s suffocating for those who are used to the freedom Shinra provides. At least watching the teens go stir crazy will generate some entertainment. 

Someone must have decided to turn the air conditioning up, for some reason. It’s impossible to tell what season it is outside, because the facility has no windows. They could be underground or up on a mountain for all Izaya knows, but the colder air conditioning must mean it’s summer time. Or Shingen thought it’d be interesting to come back from vacation to popsicle subjects. 

Izaya shivers; Shizuo’s thin sheet is definitely not enough to warm him.

Shizuo sat on the floor a while ago, and now he’s watching Izaya. Without the narcotics, the slow burning coals spread under the skin of his arm is starting to become intolerable, too. Damn Kujiragi and her drugs. Damn Shizuo for witnessing his vulnerable state yet _again_. 

“What?” He hisses at the brute. 

Shizuo just sighs, and starts to climb into the bed with him. Izaya’s brain scrambles as Shizuo continues to do the exact opposite of expected. 

Shizuo’s arms carefully wrap around his slim frame, and he tries to avoid the injured arm as much as possible. “What are you doing?!” Izaya nearly screeches, eyes flicking to the teens for their reaction to the arch enemies in a single bed together. 

Their confusion mirrors Izaya’s, but his shock is far more palpable than theirs as his face is met with the blue cloth covering Shizuo’s chest. He looks up to see that Shizuo’s face is pinkish. “Just warming you up, you damn frozen flea,” He says, eyes trained intensely on the wall.

When he’s finally able to focus on something besides the immediate proximity of a monster _in bed with him_ , he does notice that he is… warming up. His shivers lessen to nothing, which is doubly nice because the small, tense muscle spasms were really hurting his arm… So tired of being cold… so tired…

He finds himself drifting off into a combination of dull burning pain and exhaustion, laced with unknown drugs slowly slipping into his blood, softened by warmth and safety.


	21. Feather Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: Bed Intruder

Izaya is a mass of agony. 

When he wakes, he doesn’t care if whatever the hell is being dumped into his body will interact with narcotics, he wants them. Life is only manageable when the wretched chemical burn starting at his jaw and crawling down his arm is coupled with strong pain medication. 

When he moves his legs and is met with warm skin, he remembers that a certain beast had invaded his bed last night. Well, technically it was Shizuo’s bed to begin with and he was the invader…

He hasn’t had this much physical contact with anyone since… before he was taken to this facility, when his little baby sisters would forcefully snuggle up on top of him and fall asleep.

Shizuo’s arms are still wrapped around him. They had surprisingly easily found a comfortable position, but now that his arm feels as though it has set fire to itself, he’s trying to shift away. 

Shizuo groans, and blond hair tickles Izaya’s nose.

He manages to gain a small bit of distance, which honestly is only a couple inches, even though the dwindling of warmth feels like a loss. He’s only enjoying the physical feeling of no longer being cold. He’s never woken up this warmly gold and yellow in this absently white place. Damn space heater. 

Said space heater seems to also be in pain, for some reason. His face is scrunched up, pearly white teeth gnawing on his lower lip, almost adorable. 

“You awake, Protozoan?” Izaya asks. He’s quite unwilling to move, for fear of worsening his injured arm. He would move his spare, but somehow during the night the IV cord has managed to wrap itself around his pinky and wrist in some complicated feat of genius he would normally put past an inanimate object. He glances at the machine the IV is attached to, which says that it’s set to dispense a dose every hour. 

The hand Shizuo has on Izaya’s shoulder drags back to clutch at his blond head, and he groans again. “Yeah. A while. Head hurts. Way too bright in here…”

“That’s called a migraine, Shizu-chan,” Izaya informs him. He’s definitely had a fair share of those; he always gets one post sensitivity attack. Migraines set off his stomach like his head and digestive system have a pact against him. 

“Mmm. Happens sometimes,” Shizuo says on a thread, hand falling pathetically from his head to rest under his chin. 

So even the beast isn’t immune to unfavorable side effects. It’s petty, but it makes Izaya feel better about his own damaged body. Shizuo’s still a stupid success though, because occasional migraines are not a fatal flaw. There’s still a chasm between humanity and Shizuo. Izaya will laugh from the other side as Shizuo tries to fill the growing hole by tossing ludicrously massive boulders into the depths. 

Nonetheless, this Shizuo doesn’t look like he could throw even a moderately sized rock. It definitely won’t do to have his bodyguard out of commision. Even though Mikado doesn’t seem to be out for his blood anymore, Haruna sure is. If she got to Izumii, it’s not far fetched to assume she got to Mikado and/or Kida at some point.

Plus, he could really use the sweet relief of some pain medication himself. 

“I’ll be back, Shizu-chan,” Izaya assures, lightly patting Shizuo’s shoulder. He struggles to climb over Shizuo and out of the bed, with his useless arm and IV tangling even further, but finally manages. He snags onto one of the bedposts to recover for a couple minutes, breath embarrassingly ragged. It’s so cold without Shizuo, even with his shoulder radiating heat. 

He forces himself to move towards the window, dragging along his IV stand, even though he really just wants to curl back into bed and wait for the pain to stop. He checks both ways down the hallway, and at the sign of no guards, he heads for the door. 

“Where are you going, Izaya-san?” Mikado asks as he steps closer, hand outstretched with Mikado’s very special brand of genuine but not quite worry. 

“Bathroom,” Izaya smiles at him and quietly exits the room. Technically, Shinra’s subjects are still allowed to go to the bathroom without supervision, but if any guards find him even a step past the bathroom, he’ll definitely be thrown in solitary until all the researchers come back. That would be a special kind of torture, with no lovely humans to watch for an indefinite amount of time.

Security is light because most of the guards are forced on Shingen’s surprise vacations as well, so most of the remaining guards are probably posted at dorms with larger populations. Shinra’s subjects are usually written off as the damaged ones-- rightfully so, and Izaya is not an exception with his horrifically burned shoulder-- so are often overlooked. Thankfully. At least there’s one advantage to Izaya’s awful circumstances. 

Izaya calmly walks right past the bathroom and around a corner to Shinra’s office. Still no guards. He keys in the code he’s seen Shinra punch in numerous times. Shinra had complained that after Kida’s almost-escape, and thus by Izaya’s fault, security had made him upgrade from a 4 digit passcode to 8. Izaya had still memorized it after seeing it just once. He can almost hear Shinra calling him a cheeky bastard. 

Most of Shinra’s drugs are locked up in his procedure room, but he keeps overstock in his office. Shinra often just grabs pills from there whenever Izaya asks for stuff to relieve his headaches and constant nausea. 

He grabs a small handful of Oxycodone. An emergency stash is definitely a must have in this god awful place. Shizuo only has a migraine, so maybe he should grab something less potent? No, it’d make more sense if even the strongest stuff doesn’t work on the monster. The sedative in his collar is five times the regular amount, after all. He grabs a couple extra Oxycodone and stores it all in his self-sewn pocket. 

He pops two pills in his mouth, dry swallows, and heads back to the dorm. 

He doesn’t encounter any guards until, of course, he rounds a corner. And it’s Akabayashi. Great. He stops just in front of the door to the dorm and glances through the large window. Shizuo’s still laying on his bed, facing away, but the three teens are watching him. 

Akabayashi grins at him. “And where have you been, hmm?”

Izaya smiles back. “The bathroom. You didn’t get to go on the vacation?”

“No, I volunteered to stay back, let the rest have their fun,” Akabayashi says. He detaches his baton from his belt and twirls it between his hands. “Shiki-no-danna stayed too.”

His one functional eye says that he doesn’t believe Izaya’s easy lie. The swirling baton is an intimidation tactic that doesn’t work on Izaya. Akabayashi won’t do anything. Very threatening though, sure. He’s having fun acting like a guard, but he’s working with Shiki to get intel on this facility. 

He’d grin if he had more energy. When will the narcotic kick in? “Can I go back to my dorm now, Akayabashi-san?”

“Of course, of course,” He says, stepping aside. “Don’t cause any trouble now.”

Izaya quickly slips into the room, ignoring the questioning look from Mikado. He pauses just before his shared bunk and watches Shizuo’s back rise and fall with his breath. It’s one thing to not fight Shizuo when he clambered into the bed last night, but it’s an entirely different thing to climb into a bed with a monster of his own volition. 

He puts off the decision by lightly tapping Shizuo’s shoulder. “I got you something to help with the migraine, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo groans as he flips over and holds out his hand. Izaya drops five pills into his waiting palm, amused when he blinks at them suspiciously. But he dry swallows them without voicing complaint.

“Hope you didn’t just poison me…” he grumbles.

Izaya sinks to the floor because he can’t stand anymore. Thankfully the drugs he took are finally starting to work, but it’s making him dizzy. No pain relief yet though. Maybe he should have grabbed the intravenous version, but syringes are much harder to hide than little white pills. “I did. It’s too late now, I hope you realize,” he says with an exhausted sigh. Even teasing is so much energy.

After a growl at Izaya, Shizuo _humphs_ and scoots himself towards the wall. “Here. Get off the floor.”

Izaya glares at him distastefully. Now it’s even worse; he’s being _invited_ into the monster’s bed. 

Dammit. He can just imagine how it feels to gently sink into the mattress-- even if these thin excuses for beds are impossibly uncomfortable. Right now it’s the equivalent of a fluffy cloud. He glances unhappily at his top bunk, so close yet out of the reach of his stupid burnt arm. 

“Fine, stay on the floor,” Shizuo grumbles and turns back towards the wall.

The Oxycodone slowly starts to staunch the burning pain, like a wad of wet cotton smothering a small flame, which melts his body right through the cold tiles. He really just wants to melt into a mattress, even if there’s a lump of monster next to him.

He tells himself he’s crawling into Shizuo’s bed because the floor is uncomfortable, and it’s easier now that the beast isn’t looking at him. Waiting, expectant. Will he ever get to drown in that bottomless rage Shizuo used to display, just for him, again?

As Izaya settles in, unwrapping the seemingly sentient and obsessive tangled IV cord from his arm, Shizuo unfortunately turns back around. “Where’d you even get the pills?”

His face is way too close. Izaya stays on his back so that his own face has some sort of pathetic distance from Shizuo’s warm breath. “Do you really want to know?”

Shizuo snorts. “I guess not. I have no idea how you do half the things you do around here.”

Izaya just makes a small noncommittal noise. The drugs are running a heaviness through his muscles. He’s sinking and he can’t tell where his limbs end and the blankets begin. It feels so nice he can’t bring himself to worry about any interactions Kujiragi’s new drug steadily pumping through the IV will have. 

He’s not sure how long it takes Shizuo to speak up again, but the drug seems to have worked through him as well. Surprising that it actually did something. 

“This stuff is nice,” he says with a sigh. Izaya blinks open his eyes to look at him, unwilling to move even an inch from his warm cocoon. 

Shizuo has his eyes closed, expression slack with peace. A hand is somehow in his hair, rubbing soft circles into his scalp. It’s so soothing… adds to his warm haze. 

The hand finds the scar that starts behind his ear and curves around the side of his head. A soft finger follows the trail. 

“What is this?” Shizuo’s voice is so close that it’s surreal. There’s breath on his face.

Ah.

His scalp tingles. The gentle warmth turns too much, too hot. There are scalpels in his head. Sharp edges are scrambling as a barely intelligible mask asks him simple questions. A circle, a square, a bird, a triangle, my name is Orihara… Izaya… my name… 

His own voice is a whimper. “Kujiragi did it.”

One. Two. Three. Four…. Six?

“I’m sorry.” 

His hair is smoothed back, glinting metal easily pushed away, and there are lips on his forehead. He allows himself a breath; it’s safe. He’s safe here.


	22. Uncouth and Inarticulate

Shizuo has space, and it feels empty. It wakes him up; his hands searching for something that isn’t there. 

His muddled brain finally registers that Izaya isn’t in the bed with him. It’s still night; the lights are out and the clock on the wall says somewhere between 2 and 3 am. It’s too dark to read it clearly. 

Whatever drug Izaya had given him has worn off, but luckily so has the headache. Or migraine. Whatever. He stands up and checks around the room, but everything is accounted for save for an annoying flea. 

He sneaks to the door as quietly as possible, ignoring his shoes. When he cautiously opens the door and peers down the hallway, he spots a guard standing outside the bathroom. Shizuo pads over and nods in greeting to the guard, who has a noticeable scar over his eyebrow and a cigarette between his teeth. 

“He’s in there,” the guard says, gesturing carelessly towards the door to the bathroom. 

Shizuo thanks him and quickly enters the room, shutting the door behind him. Immediately there’s the unpleasant sound of retching. He follows the sound past the showers to the toilets, and there’s Izaya on the ground. He’s just finished vomiting and is now panting heavily and resting his head on the toilet seat. 

“Stupid drugs,” he mumbles, not yet noticing Shizuo’s presence. He yanks the IV right out of his arm, not even flinching.

“What the fuck?! Don't you need that?” Shizuo asks, skidding down next to Izaya in order to grab his bleeding arm and staunch the flow with some toilet paper. Pressure is supposed to make it bruise less, right? He has to be careful though, he could end up just _causing_ a bruise instead. Or worse, a broken bone. Fuck. 

Izaya is a mess. He’s very obviously uncomfortable, in pain, and exhausted. Sweat is sticking his hair to his forehead, the nape of his neck. It’s clear he’s been throwing up stomach acid for a while, and the small spasms indicate he’s not done yet.

“No,” Izaya glares at him, though Shizuo knows it’s mostly misdirected anger. “It's just making me vomit. Possibly because I took that narcotic, who knows. Kujiragi will punish me when she gets back, whatever. It'll be better than this.”

The mention of the yellow scientist stops Shizuo’s response. He remembers last night through a haze, but the waver in Izaya’s voice is clear. Which also brings to mind the wonderfully soft feeling of Izaya’s hair running through his fingers, finding the ridge of raised skin… Man, they were both pretty out of it last night. 

Izaya gags, quickly turning back to the toilet to dry heave. Shizuo waits for him to finish, still holding his thin wrist. “I think we should talk.”

“Right now?” Izaya rasps. His arms are trembling, and he wipes at the saliva dribbling from his mouth. 

Shizuo frowns. He really is awful at timing. “I guess not.”

The glare Izaya directs at him could kill a small animal. “I hate you so much. Go ahead, let’s _talk_.”

This definitely won’t be easy. This is either the worst or best time to talk things out; he’ll be too tired to lie, but also less rational. Plus Shizuo is really terrible with words. “Last night--”

“Last night we were _both_ drugged,” Izaya snaps. It's never a good thing when Izaya doesn't even bother with his false smile or annoying pleasantries. “Narcotics alter behavior. Neither of us can be held responsible for… What happened. Or what was said.”

Fucking liar. Shizuo may not have been clear-headed last night, but he’s positive that the drug worked like how alcohol does; lowering inhibitions. He didn’t think or do anything that was completely beyond his character. In fact, he’d lately caught himself wondering what Izaya’s hair would feel like, picturing his hands running down the notches of his spine. The drugs allowed him to do that, so he can’t say he regrets it, no matter how embarrassing it is now.

“Bullshit.” _Kujiragi did it._ Izaya trembling beneath his hands was so, so clear. How on earth can he get his point across? He knows that when words spill from his lips, he turns into as much a mess as Izaya looks right now. “You keep saying it was the drugs, but that scar on your head is real. The damage it did to you--”

“I am _not damaged_ ,” Izaya seethes. “Just because you’re a success--”

Shizuo’s patience cracks the same time the tile below his hand not holding Izaya’s wrist does. The sound cuts Izaya off, and he glares at the mess of broken tile shards and blood. 

“Let me talk,” Shizuo growls out carefully. He’s not going to let Izaya’s stupid self denial mess him up. He breathes in and releases Izaya’s arm. The bleeding should hopefully be stopped by now, and if not, it’s not worth the risk of injuring Izaya. The sight of his hands in the shape of bruises on Izaya’s throat will always be at the back of his skull. 

There’s the soft sound of the bathroom door opening, and the guard calls, “Everything alright in here, boys?”

“We’re fine, Shiki-san,” Izaya calls back.

The door clicks back closed. Shizuo’s already crumbling train of thought has been completely derailed. “You even have the fucking guards under your disgusting thumb?”

“I have to protect myself somehow,” Izaya says, indignant. “I’m not a monster like _someone_ I know.”

“You know what? I don’t fucking care.” Shizuo shakes his head, trying a physical action to force his thoughts back into alignment and correctly out of his mouth. What the fuck was he talking about? Izaya hissing success echoes around his ears again. “You don’t know the things I’ve gone through to get this monster body _that I don’t even want_.”

There were so many days he couldn’t decide whether the constant surgeries or his lonely cubby hole bed was more painful. So much, nearly everything, became better when he transferred to Shinra. At the same time it had been harder; he realized the ache he had to be around other people had always been there. Under Shingen, it was so constant and never relieved that he grew so used to it that it became invisible. He can’t stand being alone anymore.

Izaya is, surprisingly, silent. He’s staring at the broken tile, holding his stomach like he’s trying to keep down nausea. Shizuo stands because if he stays this close to Izaya he’s going to do something he’ll regret. He takes the broken tile and flings it at the wall. Izaya doesn’t flinch and his hands still ache to destroy more. 

“Nothing about this goddamn place is a success,” Shizuo says, pacing angrily, “Get your head out of your ass and stop saying you’re not a victim and then acting like you’re the _only_ victim.”

Izaya attempts to speak, but gags and slaps a hand over his mouth. He turns away until the gagging quiets down. “Fine,” he mumbles through his fingers. 

Shizuo wants so badly to hate Izaya like he used to. To rip a sink right out of the wall and toss it at his bastard head. But he’s found a kindred pain, a loneliness, in Izaya and he can’t stop the impulse to reach for the first and only thing that has relieved the slow numbness of silence and white walls. His hatred has turned to the people responsible for backing a dangerous animal like Izaya into a corner. It’s their fault he’s found himself emphasizing with such a lowlife, because they backed him into the same corner. 

He runs his hands through his hair, unfortunately remembering too late that his hand is still bleeding. The conversation seems to be closing, but it shouldn’t. Nothing’s been resolved. He’s learned that above all else, Izaya needs control, so he says “I died once.”

Spine bristling, Izaya looks at him. “Shingen was operating on me,” He continues. “Looking at something in my chest. I don’t know why, he never explained things to me. My heart stopped beating for two minutes until he revived me. I remember him saying, all happily, ‘that sure was close!’ and laughing. I don’t remember ever wishing so hard for Shingen to have messed up.”

That old fear trails along his throat, forces a shiver through him. “That thought terrified me. So I forced myself to stop wishing for things.”

Izaya’s brown-red eyes dissect him like Shingen’s gas mask never did. He hasn’t felt this calm in a long, long time. 

He’s letting Izaya look right into him. It’s not like he couldn’t before, Shizuo was never exactly good at hiding things, but this is an open invitation. Because vulnerability can be a two way door, and if Izaya passes through then so can Shizuo. Izaya needs choices, especially after all the choices that have been ripped away from him, and Shizuo is happy to offer them. It’s just up to Izaya if he wants to slam the door shut or not. 

“We hurt ourselves enough without others’ help, Izaya,” he says. “What did Kujiragi do to your head?”

Izaya’s almost but not quite softening face turns immediately to a glare. He’s made his choice, and unsurprisingly, he’s picked running away. Again.

He clicks his tongue. “You really think telling me a stupid sob story that’s happened to nearly everyone here is going to make me cry and open up? I’ll tell you my deepest insecurities and we’ll hug it out and the power of our newfound friendship will fly us out of this hellhole?”

“No,” Shizuo sighs, running his bloodied hand through his hair again, probably turning it to some hideous combination of maroon and gold. Of course, _of course_ Izaya is going to stay as far away from any potential harm as possible. Why did he expect anything different? “Eventually you’re going to suppress so much bad shit that you’re going to completely break down, Izaya. You’re a terrible person but even you have a limit to how much pain you can take.”

He moves for the door, and Izaya doesn’t say anything. The silence widens between them as Shizuo heads back to bed, this time climbing up to Izaya’s bunk.


	23. Like Sardines

Izaya is so bored he's sure he's going to climb the walls or claw marks into his scalp.

He slides himself, face-first and gently, onto the floor. The solid tile hurts, but he can’t stand lying on the bed anymore. He’s got humans around, but none of them have done _anything_ in hours. They’re all smashed in a tiny room together and absolutely no one has clashed, or talked, or even really _interacted_. What’s the point of humans if they’re just going to lay there?

Mikado and Kida are reading a comic together, chuckling occasionally but not speaking. Anri is just watching them. They must have read that damn thing thirty times by now. And Shizuo is sitting on the floor at the foot of their shared bunk, leaning against the wall, staring at nothing. 

Delightful.

No fun humans means boredom, and boredom means introspection, and introspection means endless, torturous mental circles. 

Damn Shizuo. The scars along his scalp have tingled since he woke up. His throat is ravaged from puking all night. 

Yes, _dammit_ , Shizuo-- _I’m alone_. 

There’s (maybe sort of kind of possibly) Shinra, and… no one. Everyone else would happily slam Izaya’s face into a barrel of acid. Shinra probably would too, actually, but he’s a weird asshole. 

Kadota, though. He probably wouldn’t, but mostly because he wouldn’t hurt anyone who didn’t attack him first. Kadota is friendly with _everyone_ , so he doesn’t count. Kadota used to sit with Izaya during meal times, but one day Izaya sat at a new table alone and Kadota didn’t follow. And that was that. 

And just like with Kadota, Izaya chose to be alone. Alone, yes, but not lonely. Sometimes he wants to find skin contact when he reaches out, but all he’s met with is open air. So he turns his hands to his mind, to scrape it open because it failed to sustain itself. _But he chose this_. 

Because he’s known for a long time that he doesn’t feel like how other people do. Emotion is vulnerability, and there’s no point in him being consumed by someone that won’t be consumed by him in return. How on earth did he start caring about Shinra, who only cares about his dullahan? And Shizuo--

_Circles._

Izaya hisses, trying to shift to a position that doesn’t hurt his arm. “I’m bored,” he moans, mostly to save his own sanity. Funny how being locked in a cell with next to nothing to occupy yourself is a literal torture method, which should mean entertainment for Izaya, but they’re all so used to it that they’ve become numb to it. Which makes it even worse torture for Izaya. 

Everyone ignores him. Ugh. He's about to sit up and show them what a mistake it is to ignore Orihara Izaya when a guard slams the door open with far too much force.

Izaya welcomes the new activity. Anything that isn't a bunch of humans just sitting there. “ _Finally_ something is happening. What is it? Please tell me something exciting is happening.”

The guard shoots an irritated and slightly confused look at Izaya, clearly unfamiliar with this particular mouthy experimental subject. “Shut your mouth. You're all being moved.”

Izaya sits up. Oh, his arm aches. Shouldn't have laid on the floor. “Hmm, why are we being moved?”

The guard scowls at him and raises a small black device in his hand. It's the trigger for the electroshocks to the collars and Izaya takes a step back to signify that he will no longer be a problem. Surprisingly, he has never been shocked before. He's learned who the trigger happy guards are and made sure to either avoid them or get on their good side. Plus Shinra will never shock him no matter how annoying he gets, for whatever reason. This guy must be new though. He's going on the trigger happy list. 

They're all lead to the arena, which has been completely cleared out of equipment to make a wide empty space. The other subjects mill around, clustered in small groups. They must be the last group to be transferred over. 

This is even worse than the tiny dorm. There's no beds, or _anything_ for that matter. And who knows how long they'll be stuck in this room. At least now a large number of people are all trapped together, with absolutely no comfort, so people will no doubt butt heads eventually. At least that will be entertaining. 

Speaking of entertaining, Izaya spots Kadota. He skips away from the little terrified group that is Shinra’s subjects, all huddled close together. 

“Dotachin!!” Izaya halts just in front of Kadota, slightly startling him. He recovers quickly though, used to Izaya’s strange exuberance. 

“Oh, hey,” he says, glancing down to Izaya’s loosely wrapped shoulder. He was talking to a group of friends, but easily turns his attention to Izaya, slowly leading him away. “What happened to your arm?” 

“Oh this? Just some excitement with acid.” Izaya looks back to Shizuo, who is still awkwardly standing near the rest of Shinra’s subjects. Phantom hands slowly smooth over his burn, and Izaya has to focus to make the memory go away.“Niekawa-san is not very fond of me.”

“I can never tell if I should actually be worried about you or not. Do you know why we’re all in here?” Kadota asks. 

“I'm sure it's because they don't have enough people to watch us all in different dorms. It's much easier if we're all in one place.” Izaya lets Kadota lead, but when they reach a spot out of earshot from subject and guard alike, he plants his feet. “I'm sure this changes your plans some.” 

Kadota grins. Izaya has always been fascinated with how Kadota can get people to do things with just that smile. “For the better. The guards escort us to the bathrooms now, and that'll be our chance. Then we'll go for the power to shut off these awful collars.” 

Izaya carefully doesn't let himself consider whether this plan will work or not. No escape attempt has been successful while he's been trapped here. He doesn't like the strange twist in his stomach when he thinks about what exactly success would entail. “When will this be happening?” 

“Hey! 311!” Someone shouts across the room. Izaya kind of hates how he responds to the numbers, like they are actually attached to his person.

It is also slightly worrying how three guards are heading right for him.


	24. Fault Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it's gonna start getting REALLY rough from here on out. I've touched on a couple of the warnings in my tags so far, but they're gonna really start coming into play soon. So, be warned. Also, there is still quite a bit left, but it's going to pick up here.

Shizuo watches as the guards confront Izaya. What the fuck did that bastard get himself into now?

He starts to approach them as the guards gesture aggressively at Izaya, but one of them snags Izaya's arm, thankfully the uninjured one, and hauls him away. He’s never seen Izaya so ungraceful; the guard barely allowing Izaya’s feet to gain purchase as he tries to stumble along.

The ripple along Shizuo’s spine tells him to rush the guard and snap his arm for daring to treat Izaya so roughly, especially while he’s still injured. But the weight of the collar around his neck tells him that would only end in sedatives and solitary, possibly even a beating. Instead he stomps over to Kadota, barely managing to keep from breaking the floor tiles as he goes. 

Kadota’s hesitant stance and weary eyes forces his lungs to deflate with a calming breath. He likes Kadota, he’s always been kind and placating, and Shizuo would feel awful if he scared him. 

“Where are the guards taking Izaya-kun?” Shizuo asks once his too hot blood settles.

Kadota studies him a moment, slow confusion at the curve of his mouth and the raise of his eyebrows. “Solitary. They said they caught him stealing from Kishitani-sensei’s office on the cameras.”

Shizuo bites his lip. That must be the pills Izaya gave him. Of all people, Izaya got in trouble from helping him. He hasn’t realized it until now, that Izaya has been very quietly helping him more and more lately, in his own way. 

With the way Izaya thrives on interaction, solitary will no doubt be hell for him. He only seems to break down when he’s forced to stop his constant stream of energy, when he can no longer lie to himself that he’s still in control. 

“Are you…” Kadota starts slowly, testing the waters, “and Izaya… friends now?”

Are they? Who the fuck knows. “I guess we’re not enemies anymore. We haven’t tried to kill each other in a while.” Fuck, they’ve slept in the same _bed_. Do friends even do that? He has no idea. Friends definitely do not think about what it’d be like to run their hands all over their friend’s soft, pale skin... Fuck. Not like any relationship cultivated in his hell can be measured with normal standards anyway. 

“I’ve heard rumors…” Kadota says. Shit, those kids must be telling everyone about the arch enemies getting chummy with each other. There’s no such thing as privacy in this place. “But out of all the weird stuff here, that’s gotta be the most unbelievable thing.”

Shizuo doesn’t answer. Is it really that unbelievable? He supposes, with how they used to be, it is. The feel of a lunch table leaving his hands to head straight for Izaya’s cutting smile has faded so much it’s like he can only recall the facts and not the actual event. Like he read it in some book that he didn’t care enough to remember the title of. 

Kadota sighs and rubs his neck like something taxing has been placed there. “I don’t know if I can get them to change their plans…” He mumbles, and Shizuo is barely able to catch it. 

“What?” he asks.

“I can’t tell many people, but be careful tonight.” He nods in departure and heads back to his group of friends, leaving Shizuo to mull over what exactly that annoyingly cryptic warning means. 

~

Helping his protozoan bodyguard had been a mistake.

Izaya's been sent to solitary only twice, and both times were to protect him from the wrath of other subjects who were angry with him while the guards figured out what to do with them. 

Solitary is far, far worse than the dorms. Or even the observation rooms. Solitary is an echo chamber of minor negative sensations instead of sound, bouncing off the walls and amplifying until every pleasant thought has been consumed. 

He’s careful about the cameras. He knows where they all are. They’re only watched when someone’s looking for a specific subject, or reviewed when someone needs details on a past event. It’s really not Shizuo’s fault, just a bout of terribly bad luck, that someone happened to be watching while Izaya snuck around. He’s accumulated a rather large amount of bad luck, it seems, with the way it’s clung to his shoulders ever since, well, he got taken to this wretched facility. 

The guard opens the cell door in front of Izaya, then forces him in with a sharp kick to the back. He collapses at the unexpected pain and curls into himself, hugging his ribs that he would really rather not be broken again. His arm is on fire.

“Damn piece of trash,” the guard snarls, stepping into the room after him. It’s small, just a cot and a toilet in a concrete box, so he’s looming over Izaya with just two steps. “You don’t even know the kind of hours I’ve had to pull ‘cause the crazy department head decided to run off with most of our staff.”

The guard leans over him, and there’s a hand on his arm, pulling him up to an awkward sitting position where all his weight is on the guard. “I was about to go home! And then Hei caught you on the cameras and now I have to stay to watch you.”

The sneer on the guard’s face bristles his spine. He has to tell himself he loves humans, their light and their darkness, even if their poison is slowly absorbing into his own skin. His thoughts blank out when the guard snatches his burned arm and squeezes. He hates the pathetic whimper that crawls up his throat. 

“Like you could run away anyway, you’re so broken. It’s so infuriating that we’re not allowed to injure you guys. No matter how entitled and pretentious you get, we can’t damage the precious experimental material! But the scientists aren’t here to bitch, and what’s just a couple more bruises on you, anyhow?” He pulls Izaya’s arm from the sling and away from his body, and the movement is horrendously painful. It should just be normal mobility for his arm, but his skin is pulling together and healing what it can, which doesn’t give his muscles as much space to stretch. 

He lets out a barely stifled scream, and the guard sighs.

“Pathetic,” He says. Izaya’s arm is dropped, a fist slams into his jaw and he’s on the floor again. The door shuts and the lock slides into place. 

He stays curled on the floor until he can’t stand how the silence weighs heavy in his wounds. He’s shivering violently, and the small cot has not even a sheet, barren as the walls. 

He’s completely, utterly alone in a concrete box and he’s pretty sure soon he’ll be begging the guard to come back and beat him up, just so he can observe the ugliness of a human other than himself.


	25. Buckling

Shizuo wakes to screaming.

It takes a moment for him to pull himself into awareness. The lights are out and it’s messing with his vision. The only illumination in the room is a red glow near the floor. He can’t remember falling asleep; just laying on the floor, too lost in Kadota’s words and his own worry and the tense weight filling the air of so many people trapped in suffering together. Each subject had been given a sheet, a pillow, and a space on the floor. Shizuo’s own discomfort somehow only seemed to amplify as more and more people tried and failed to find the elusive gentleness of sleep. 

He’s able to snap to attention when he hears Kadota’s voice. He’s at one of the entrances and a guard is being held down by him and a number of other subjects. Shizuo has looked just in time to watch in horrified fascination as one of the subjects drags a blade across the guard’s throat, Kadota shouting for them to stop, too late. 

Shizuo finds himself next to Kadota without consciously having gotten up and moved. Kadota glances at him briefly, a hand over his mouth. The glow from the lights installed near the floor distort his face and cast his eyes in ominous shadow. He whirls on his group, “I said no killing! Killing makes us just as bad as them.”

The woman with the dripping blade sneers at him, but doesn’t argue. Kadota sighs. “Just. Just keep going,” He says, then claps a hand on Shizuo’s shoulder and steps away as his group slips out the arena doors. 

Shizuo is still reeling. He’s staring at the dead guard, at the blood pooling on the ground from his wrecked throat. It shines all the more red from the low tinted lighting. He’s seen worse, honestly he has. People being held down, screaming and writhing, the way their limbs would twist as a scientist surgically forced machinery into their bodies, or the husks of people left over from diets entirely consisting of pills. He’s looked at them and imagined Izaya every time he skips a meal.

He should feel satisfied, sated by revenge, but violence never stops at the victims. The guard’s blood slips down into one of the many drains installed in the floor, and Shizuo can only see his own blood after one of Shingen’s surgeries. 

“Shizuo, hey,” Kadota snags his attention back, mercifully. Kadota knows he’s freaked out, and he’s turning Shizuo’s line of sight away, to his own person. “We killed the power, so the collars are off. Everyone’s escaping.”

It finally clicks that everything is red because it’s the emergency lights. Shizuo runs his fingers along the cold metal at his neck. It molds under his hands like clay, no shocks or drugs to keep his strength in check, and he drops the deformed chunk of metal to the floor. That’s all it is now. Useless metal.

“Izaya’s in trouble, though.”

“Where is he?” he asks instantly. He’s still feeling around his neck; his throat feels weird after wearing that collar for years. It’s freeing to not have a weapon poised at your vitals.

“He’s still in solitary. I’d go but I have to lead the others out, and...” He lets out an aggravated breath. “No one else wants to go help him.”

Of course no one wants to help the lonely asshole. Even a monster like himself has people that would go back for him, Tom, Vorona, his brother-- if he had the misfortune of being here. Maybe even that headless woman he met a couple times. But Izaya is being left behind in a prison. 

Before, when he and Izaya still loathed each other, when Izaya made his already awful life that much more frustrating, when the bastard would use the suffering of others for his own gain, he would’ve left the asshole in isolation without a second thought. But Izaya’s trapped there because he helped Shizuo. More than the pills, so much more; he was so vacant and aimless when he was under Shingen’s thumb. He felt so many things when he was forced to share space with Izaya. Anger, definitely, but also a weird, sort of unstable companionship that was comprised of so many conflicting emotions that Shizuo had no idea how to identify any of them.

“I’ll get Izaya,” He says. 

~

Izaya curls tight into himself. It hurts, it hurts, it _hurts_. 

He’s been through worse, he knows he has, but he’s trapped and it’s just been building and building for the _years_ his body hasn’t been his. Like Shizuo said, no matter how much he says he isn’t a victim, _he is_. He’s just as ugly as that guard that beat him, just as disgustingly weak. 

He needs Shizuo. Everything is wrong because _he wants Shizuo here._

When the lights die, he knows that it's Kadota’s plan. His collar is harmless now, but it doesn't even _matter_. His cell goes dark and red, the only light dimly filtering in from the small window installed in the door. The door that does not unlock when the power is lost, like in those awful, unrealistic movies Izaya’s sisters used to make him watch. 

He never thought he'd miss Mairu and Kururi like he does, like an ache nestled inside the soft tissues behind his ribs. He tries to not think about them, to wonder if their parents came back from overseas when he went missing. If at least _someone_ is looking after those little devils. What they look like now, after the years he’s been gone. If they went looking for him. He doesn't deserve it if they did. He treated them like an experiment in developmental psychology because he didn’t know how to interact with them properly. Would they even want him back?

It doesn't matter, because he’ll never see them again. All the subjects should be escaping by now. He’s trapped and no one will come for him, he knows. 

Ha. Serves him right.

He'll be the only subject left. The scientists will be livid. They'll use him up until he has absolutely nothing left to give, or they’ll just discard him on the spot, to hide the evidence from the authorities that will no doubt arrive after the escaped subjects spread the tales of their horrors. A sample size of one is just another useless case study, after all.

There are tears at the edges of his eyes, and it makes him so angry that he wants to scream, to slam his hands on the door over and over until he stops imagining Kujiragi cutting into his chest, his head, while Shizuo reunites with his beloved brother in the sunlight and open air. 

He can't move. He can't breathe. It's painful how badly he doesn't want to want Shizuo here, but he does. It will hurt so much less if he can just not care about being left behind, if he was the true observer of humanity that he so often claimed-- If he was removed just far enough from humanity’s ugly, reaching hands. They've been clawing, grasping at him this whole time; all he did was paint their hands the same color as his own skin. He can stop the pain any time he wants if he’s just hurting himself. 

His cell door screeches as it caves into the shape of hands. His body jerks so hard from the sudden noise that his head slams into the wall behind him. 

Shizuo tosses the wrecked door aside and steps into the cell, his hair illuminated reddish and harsh shadows thrown across his face from the floor lights. 

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya nearly gasps. His brain is scrambling to keep up with what he's seeing. It's impossible that Shizuo came back for him. He must be succumbing to his many wounds, or maybe one of Kujiragi’s drugs is catching up with him. 

This dark Shizuo can only be here to take him to hell. At least it's Shizuo, and not Shingen’s gas mask or Kujiragi’s just as stoic face. He would've liked to say goodbye to Shinra, but he can settle for Shizuo. 

Izaya is blinded suddenly, and he has to let his eyes adjust before he realizes the lights have come back on. 

As his vision comes back, vague shapes coalesce into Shizuo, who is flinching in the brightness. His hair is that brilliant blond again, his clothes just as ratty and plain as before. Izaya has to sigh, because he can finally accept that this is the real Shizuo. His stomach is churning so much, everything hurts, and he can't tell if he's relieved or disappointed or terrified or angry. 

Shizuo’s collar is gone. He's free. He's free and he came back for Izaya. 

“694! Get back in that cell!” 

Shizuo turns to the guard that had been assigned to watch Izaya. There's a gun, a real, live ammunition gun, aimed right at Shizuo’s face. He must have run to get it when he saw Shizuo coming. 

The guard’s hand doesn’t waver. “The power’s back and so are the collars. We’re rounding up the rest of you shits as we speak! Move _back_.”

Of course Shizuo is stupid. Maybe he doesn’t realize the gun is real, or doesn't think it'll hurt him, but he steps forward, fist raised, and the guard shoots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


	26. Crumbling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NFKSUHFS this chapter. THIS CHAPTER. was really. hard to write.

Shizuo flinches--a small, jerky movement-- so Izaya knows he’s been hit, he just isn’t sure where. 

He doesn’t have time to process, _Shizuo has been shot, where, how bad_ before the idiot is moving for the guard again. 

The guard just stares, his face slowly twisting to terrified shock as he realizes a bullet has not stopped the monster before him. He shoots again, and this time Izaya can tell he’s aiming specifically to immobilize and not to kill. 

Shizuo falls, but only to his knees, an animalistic growl ripping from his throat. Both of his legs are bleeding but he barely seems to notice or care. 

“Fucking monster,” The guard mutters. He lowers his weapon with surprising restraint. He steps out of Shizuo’s range and unclips a remote from his belt. Izaya doesn’t understand for a moment because it’s a remote to the collars, and Shizuo doesn’t have his anymore. “I bet this will convince you.”

Izaya’s never been shocked before. He’s seen the way others writhe and scream and sometimes piss themselves on the floor and done everything he could to come off as the perfectly obedient subject. Except around Shinra of course, and only because he knew that Shinra would never shock him. 

It is excruciating. He collapses, instantly losing control of his entire body. He can feel his muscles contracting beyond their limits, thousands of needles dipping just under his skin. There’s nothing else quite like this pain. It’s closest, maybe, to acid melting away his shoulder, but inside, held in by the barrier of his skin, and _everywhere_. Tingling and buzzing and constricting so intense that it’s an insatiable burning. He thinks he might be screaming, but his jaw isn’t working.

It stops as abruptly as it had started. He’s pretty sure he smells burning flesh, and it makes his stomach twist. He can’t seem to get enough air, he’s gagging, and there’s tears at his eyes, threatening to spill. His body is trembling violently, so it takes him a second to register hands on him. He’s being cradled, actually, in a lap. 

Shizuo’s face is above him. He’s looking elsewhere and his glare is so vicious, his eyes so _wild_ that Izaya jerks back in instinctual fear. 

“I set his collar to shock him if he leaves this room. It’ll use the highest voltage if you try to remove it, too. Behave while I’m gone, monster.” It’s the guard talking, from far away. It sounds, feels, far away for Izaya at least. How can he even be coherent with Shizuo staring like that?

Then Shizuo’s eyes cast downward, toward Izaya. The anger melts, but boils just below the surface, leaving room for concern to furrow his brows. “Are you okay?”

Izaya’s whole body is sore, like he’s been running and climbing and jumping for days or weeks without pause or he’s been hit by a bus or a vending machine or perhaps Shizuo himself. His recovering arm is worse, sparking and igniting a new fire with every uncontrolled twitch. His stomach is in knots, his head too, and his neck must be singed from the point of contact with the collar. There’s a bone, fiber, molecule deep exhaustion that whispers that he could and should fall asleep and never wake up.

There’s blood on his hands, laying limp by Shizuo’s thighs. “You’ve been shot,” he says instead of answering, “ _twice_.”

He’s disoriented and floaty; maybe he’s in shock, but he’s in too much pain for that. He giggles a little, because haha, shock. The electric volts maybe, possibly, _definitely_ scrambled his brain a bit. 

“Well, you were electrocuted,” Shizuo argues, like he’s offended. 

“Let me-- _ah_ ” he shifts and cuts off at the weird buzz through his muscles, like his mind and body have been separated just slightly, just enough for a rift to breeze between. He moves again, defiantly, because his body will not be taken from him like it has been before. 

His skin is hypersensitive, and it helps him settle back into his own limbs, though he’s not sure if this is better. It’s pinpricks every time his skin ghosts across anything else, and the sharp sensation of almost-pain with actual touch. He sits up despite this, and rips fabric from the hem of his already torn shirt. 

He sets to work carefully wrapping the strips around the bullet holes in Shizuo’s thighs. His hands are still trembling, not quite responding how they should, so he struggles. The wounds are so small, but so much blood is seeping from the torn flesh that it keeps his fingers from finding any grip in the slippery scarlet mess. Shizuo’s hands softly grasp onto Izaya’s, steadying them. He ties the strips as tight as he can, with Shizuo’s help, twisting the knots in hopes that it’ll assuage the bleeding, even if just a little. 

Shizuo watches him, quiet, and catches Izaya when he falls back into his lap. He’s running on energy he doesn’t have, and he really, _really_ just wants to sleep. 

Shizuo has no right to be this calm when he was just shot in the legs. “Put pressure on the wounds or you’ll die, you beast,” Izaya mumbles, finally succumbing to darkness. 

~

When Izaya wakes, he’s much more aware than before. Being shocked had really rattled him; he can barely even remember much of what happened after it. Just trying to treat Shizuo’s wounds in a haze of pain and confusion. The wounds Shizuo received because he came back for _him_.

There’s a hand in his hair, smoothing along his scalp, his head resting on a shoulder. He doesn’t want to admit how nice it feels. He’s grown used to the idea that touch equals pain, so this comfort is unfamiliar but… not unwelcome.

When Izaya sits up in order to peer over Shizuo’s lap and examine his wounds, Shizuo clears his throat. “Feeling better now?”

“Yes,” Izaya says. Even though his muscles ache, it’s dull instead of sharp now; easier to work with. 

His stomach drops at the sight of how much blood has soaked through the pitiful, makeshift bandages on Shizuo’s legs. The fabric from his shirt was red originally, so there could be less than he thinks, but it’s dripped all down his legs to make a horrific mess. The scent of iron is so strong it’s almost sickening.“What about you?”

Shizuo shrugs. “A bit dizzy, but I’m okay.”

“You really are a monster,” Izaya sighs. He glances towards the cell doorway, so tantalizingly open after Shizuo tore the door from it’s hinges. He remembers what the guard had said about trying to leave, but Shizuo is in danger of bleeding out. Why hasn’t the idiot just left him here to go find medical help? Or better yet, just left the damn facility all together?

“It’s good that I got shot,” Shizuo says, inexplicably. 

It’s concerning that Shizuo is delusional now. Is _he_ in shock? 

“I was able to use this monster body to protect you.”

“What does that even--” Izaya starts, and then cuts himself off with an aggravated groan. Shizuo’s using those damnably earnest eyes again, and it pisses him off. Power plays, counter moves, planning fifteen steps ahead, none of it matters with Shizuo. He’ll just make the simplest decision in his brain at the time and run with it, whether it makes sense or not, completely decimating any foreplanning.

Izaya is relieved when Shizuo’s honey eyes move away from his face and down to his own hands. “I’ve only ever been able to destroy and hurt things, but maybe this strength can actually help those I care about, too. I’ve never protected something before.”

The swirl of emotion in his chest is so overwhelming that he snatches onto the easiest one he can find; the anger that’s been hovering around the edges so often it’s become familiar. “Why didn’t you escape? Why didn’t you just _leave_ me here?”

When did everything change, flip, and contort? When did their roles reverse so much that Shizuo is now the one calmly staring him down while he shakes in rage? 

Shizuo’s hand is at his cheek, the tips of his fingers tracing up his jaw. “Because you’re scared. I…” He pauses, eyebrows drawn down like he’s in pain. “I can’t stand it when you’re hurting, Izaya.” 

A breath escapes Izaya’s mouth. He’s very aware of just how many places his body is pressed against Shizuo’s. Izaya’s weight on his wounded legs has to hurt. It was easier, simpler, when he didn’t care-- when neither of them cared. “Just go back to hating me, monster.”

“But you don’t want me to hate you,” Shizuo says, so maddeningly simple. His eyes, gold and brown and solid, pierce right down to Izaya’s weak heart, unflinching at his cowardice and loneliness and all the things he works so hard to hide.

Tension twists around his ribcage, because Shizuo has ripped his way right to Izaya’s core. It’s terrifying the power he has, how _close_ he is, and he can’t return Shizuo’s painfully honest gaze. The moment he closes his eyes to escape, lips touch his, and his thoughts collide with the inside of his skull.

What is. Even. What.

He is so entirely unsure what to think that he just-- doesn’t. All he has left are the physical sensations. Lips, chapped, soothing. The warmth of a hand cupping the back of his neck to pull him closer. Soft skin under the pads of his fingers as he runs his own hands over the gentle curve of a collarbone.

Then— Breath, pleasant and warm.

The white noise in his head slowly dims, and— Shizuo’s hands are on the nape of his neck. His lips are buzzing. 

What just happened.

A small, vaguely strangled noise comes from his mouth that was supposed to be words. He’s not even sure what he had tried to say. Shizuo immediately releases Izaya and jerks back like he’s been struck.

Shizuo's eyes are wide, and heat is starting to rise to his face. “... Sorry.” 

Words have never failed Izaya quite like this.


	27. Adjusting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had intended to post this WEEKS ago. But, ya know, school decided to attempt to murder me. It happens. 
> 
> Also, I removed the eventual sex tag. There will be sexy stuff, just no sex. Sorry if anyone was looking forward to that!

What the fuck what the fuck _what the fuck_.

What did he just do. He just kissed Izaya, _that’s what_. 

Izaya was so upset, Shizuo had to make sure he knew at least one person doesn’t hate him-- cares for him even. So what does his stupid brain do? _Kiss him_. He didn’t even ask for permission, either! _What the fuck_.

Now Izaya definitely thinks he’s some creepy pervert. 

Shizuo is very aware of his own face. Especially his lips, which are so oddly _tingly_. Actually, his whole body is tingly, but that's probably from the blood loss. Izaya is on the other side of the small room, which is just out of arm’s reach, pointedly looking in another direction. Shizuo takes the opportunity to run his fingertips across his lips, marveling at the sensation. Izaya had been so soft.

 _Fuck_. 

He’s not sure what to think about Izaya’s silence. When Shizuo had apologized, he’d just backed up into his current position and stayed there, brows furrowed in thought. He can’t for the life of him tell what Izaya’s expression means; if he’s angry or scared or scandalized or confused or what.

“Izaya--” He starts, just as the guard returns with a slam of a door somewhere outside the cell. He’s not entirely sure what he was going to try to say anyway, probably just another apology.

The guard has brought other guards with him. Two of them train their weapons on Shizuo-- just tranquilizers this time-- when they stop just outside the cell. 

“Damn, you really did shoot him,” one says. “You’re not supposed to do that.”

The first guard scowls. “I had to. That one’s a fucking monster, and he didn’t have a collar. It was the only thing to keep him from running off.”

A man dressed in white pushes past them all, heading straight for Shizuo. This guy must be a medic, because he sets a box down and begins taking out gloves and bottles and bandages. Almost immediately there’s an IV in Shizuo’s arm, multiple tubes already set up on a rolling stand. “You’ll be fired for this, for sure,” the medic says with an irritated glance, moving Shizuo’s limbs like he’s checking machinery. Not once has the medic yet looked at his face, except to shine a light in his eyes. Shizuo is an object being fixed.

He hears the guard snort, feels tweezers slide into the wound on his left leg, but he focuses instead on Izaya. He’s scooted closer, is now watching whatever the medic is doing, and Shizuo is watching him. 

Izaya’s hands still faintly tremble when he moves them, and he’s holding his burned arm like it’s paining him. 

Shizuo’s sight is dragged down to his legs when the medic jerks the tweezers, a growl growing in his throat, but he keeps his hands still. The medic glances up at him, wary, but quickly sets back to work. He’s pulling bits of cloth and torn tissue from the small holes in Shizuo’s legs, and when he’s done he liberally pours some weird greenish stuff onto each wound. 

“The bullets are still lodged in his tissue,” the medic states as he begins to wrap each leg in bandages. “Not a big problem, but some of it will need to be repaired. Kishitani-sensei will have to operate when he gets back.”

“You’re leaving the bullets in his legs?” Izaya asks, voice level but dark. His sudden interjection startles Shizuo, and the guards look at him like a small pest has hissed at their feet. 

The medic collects his supplies and stands. He ignores Izaya and instead looks at the guards, but he still answers the question. “I don’t have the time, resources, or skills to operate. Removing the bullets will harm him more than help, because his muscles are enhanced.”

Three of the guards crowd into the small cell as the medic leaves. The first guard demands they stand, but doesn’t give them enough time to do so before he’s violently pulling Izaya to his feet. Izaya makes a small, sharp gasp as his arms are jerked forward and manacles are locked around his wrists. 

Shizuo struggles to his feet, using the wall as support. He tries the IV stand the medic left but it’s too mobile to support any of his weight. His legs are weak but responsive. his body is unusually heavy and the room seems like it’s shifting just slightly. If he hadn’t lost so much blood, he probably wouldn’t even feel anything. He’s had too many breaks and tears from Shingen’s experiments to really care much about a couple of tiny holes. 

He would tackle the guards for how they’re handling Izaya if one of them wasn’t brandishing a remote to the collars. He never wants to watch Izaya spasm and scream like that again. 

“We’ll shock 311 if you do anything we don’t like,” they warn before they approach. They seem to be waiting for him to respond, so he nods. Manacles are locked onto his wrists-- so completely useless that Shizuo almost wants to _laugh_ \-- and then Izaya is reaching his good arm around his waist to steady him. 

He’s surprised that Izaya is willing to touch him after Shizuo kissed him out of fucking nowhere, but he’s grateful. He probably wouldn’t be able to walk straight and keep a hand on the IV stand if Izaya wasn’t helping him. He certainly wouldn’t be able to keep up with the guards that are now leading them from solitary. 

The room they are taken to is smaller than the arena, but still holds most of the subjects. Most of them are sleeping--unconscious?-- and clumped up against the back wall, all outfitted with manacles. Izaya helps him to the left corner, where the other subjects under Shinra are grouped together. 

Only Kida is awake, and is unsurprisingly shocked at the mess of wounds and bloody clothes that both he and Izaya have become. Kida hovers over them as Izaya helps Shizuo to a sitting position against the wall. 

“Were you guys in Kadota’s group? Why’d they release you?” Kida asks with little to no breath between the words. 

“No,” Izaya says, relaxing his weight against the wall beside Shizuo. There’s a bruise gaining color on his jaw that Shizuo hadn’t noticed before. “I was in solitary and Shizu-chan heroically rescued me.” His words would be teasing if the heaviness of exhaustion wasn’t clouding his tone.

Kida glances at the blood and bandages on Shizuo’s legs, clearly discerning that there was no rescue and there was absolutely nothing heroic about it. 

“We… almost made it out,” Kida explains, face pained, and he glances at his two friends, “Mikado, Anri, and I made it to the forest just outside, but the collars came back on. Everyone was sedated.” His voice is just a tiny bit slurred, hinting that he must have just recently woke up.

“Did anyone make it out?” Shizuo asks. There must have been someone. At least one person had to have escaped. All the shit this attempt brought on has to be worth it, _somehow_. 

“The guards said that everyone’s accounted for,” Kida says. His single fist is clenched, and he looks away from Shizuo. 

Anger clutches around his tense muscles, like it had when that guard had smiled as Izaya’s body spasmed. This time though, Shizuo’s body is wrecked and Izaya is wrecked and the guards have beaten down every single person who tried to find their freedom. No matter how strong he is, the scientists made him and the guards have tamed him. He was able to protect Izaya from bullets, but there’s no use if he can’t get Izaya out of this facility. 

“So where is Dotachin then?” Izaya asks, face and tone utterly unconcerned. He’s picking at the ruined hem of his shirt. His clothing, his arms, his hands, are all covered in Shizuo’s drying blood. He looks like he’s walked right out of a horror film, and Shizuo probably doesn’t look much better. 

“The guards found out that Kadota-san and Chikage-san organized the plan. They’re probably being held somewhere else,” Kida says. He’s gripping the stump that used to be his left arm and he looks up at Izaya. “I have to help them before they’re punished, or even… we need that phone now, Izaya-san.”

Izaya’s usual manic smile is softened a bit by pain and exhaustion, but that familiar sharpness to his eyes sets Shizuo on edge. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” Izaya says with a careless wave of his manacled hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A friend from real life has been beta reading the last couple chapters, so I wanted to thank her a FUCKTON cause holy shit I am a mess sometimes.


	28. Reshaping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully there's still people here??? It's been so long??? Life was a bitch and also this chapter was the hardest one to write of this whole fic??? Enjoy???  
> (Also there is an incredible amount of angst in this chapter)
> 
> THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to my beta she honestly made this chapter possible? cause this chapter was NOT HAVING IT.

Izaya is so, so tired. There’s been a heavy pressure at the back of his skull ever since Shizuo--

Kissed him. 

No matter how many times he keeps going over the memory of lips over his, he feels like he must be remembering it wrong. 

It’s such an absurd thought that Izaya can’t even begin to think of ways to exploit it. That-- kissing someone like _him_ \-- has to be a weakness, right? He kind of wants to just pretend it never happened.

It’s more than the grime and drying blood crusting over his nails that drives him to ask Shiki to take him and Shizuo to the showers.

As Izaya is roughly undressed and shoved towards the open shower stalls by the guards, he can’t help but passively find the treatment intriguing. He’d heard about an experiment done, once, where they simulated a prison. Normal people were assigned to be guards or prisoners, but within the space of a few days those named “guards” had become so aggressive and cruel that the entire thing was called off, out of fear for the “prisoners”.

It’s objectively fascinating as a guard locks his cuffs around a shower head and sets the water to scalding. These are normal people, presumably with homes and families and lives, Izaya thinks, as the guards laugh at the pained gasps he can’t keep silent in his throat. 

It’s incredibly fascinating how human it is to dehumanize others. 

Shizuo is also shoved into the shower spaces, but the guards keep their distance after he manages to punch one in the jaw. Shizuo’s injuries must have weakened him quite a lot, given that the punch mostly just irritates the guard. Thankfully, Shiki is able to convince them to leave instead of engaging further in their petty retribution. Even with two bullet holes; perhaps even _because_ he’s so injured yet still moving and growling and fighting back, Shizuo is quite imposing. Especially without the convenience of sedatives inside his collar. Presumably, the guards cannot find a replacement. 

Only Shiki is left. “Sorry, informant-san,” He says, unlocking Izaya’s cuffs and adjusting the water to a more bearable temperature, “With the recent breakout starting in the bathroom, they won't let anyone go alone.” He steps back, his frown contemplative. “They only left just now because they know the both of you can barely even walk, and there’s more important things to tend to.”

Izaya leans against the tiled wall, then sighs as he slides down to the floor. He brings his knees to his chest in an attempt to gain whatever miniscule amount of privacy he can. “It’s fine, Shiki-san. I knew this would happen when I requested access to the showers.” It’s worth it, to be able to wash the awful smell of blood from his skin. He can’t stand the sight of the maroon staining Shizuo’s legs, either.

Shiki excuses himself to go retrieve Izaya’s requested items, reminding him that Akabayashi will be waiting outside the door. Izaya rests his back against the wall, thoroughly enjoying the warm water soothing his tense muscles for a moment, even if it stings his still healing wounds. There’s a small splash to his left, and he lazily glances over to Shizuo, now also sitting on the tile. Standing probably puts too much pressure on his legs. They’re both so broken that Izaya has to chuckle a bit. Finally, the raging beast has been taken down a notch. For some reason, though, it doesn’t fill Izaya with as much joy as he once thought it would.

Shizuo shoots him a confused glare but doesn’t comment on the misplaced laughter. The bandages wrapped around his thighs are pink and soaked through. “This is more than just bribing the guards to sneak you gum and cigarettes. They’re… helping you. What the hell are you up to, Izaya?” 

He smiles and closes his eyes, hoping that it hides his intense fatigue. He wishes that Shizuo had let him enjoy his shower a bit longer before interrogating him. Before forcing the undesirable discussion Izaya knows this will lead to. “Those two guards are yakusa. They’ve been looking for someone, so…” He pauses and lets his head tilt back, his shoulders settling into exhausted heaviness. “We established a mutually beneficial relationship.”

“Oh, so you're actually answering me this time?” Shizuo snorts. 

Izaya continues to smile. This is dangerous, he knows. Shizuo has thrown their already precarious relationship completely askew, and now Izaya is scrambling to find a counterbalance. 

He has accepted that he needs Shizuo. He can no longer survive in this facility without the safety that Shizuo has come to embody in his mind. Not after Shizuo came back for him while he was trapped in solitary. 

He doesn’t know how he should react. He doesn’t know what will keep Shizuo from finally remembering that Izaya is a worthless bastard that only cares about himself. Shizuo wants something -- _everybody_ wants something -- _that_ can be the only reason he’s stuck around, the reason he broke into Izaya’s cell and effectively threw away his chance at freedom. 

Izaya has always been able to read his expressions. Shizuo shows his emotions freely and emphatically, like a child that hasn’t learned how to lie yet. But- God damn it all- Izaya always struggles with the reasoning behind them, and therefore Shizuo’s actions have the annoying tendency to _make no goddamn sense_. Shizuo _kissed him_. 

That’s the only way to keep him, right? 

“So, you're attracted to me?” Izaya says, pitching his tone low. It’s not like this body really belongs to him, anyway. What does it matter if giving it to shizuo is what it takes to make him stay? 

“What?” Shizuo turns sharply towards him, his face immediately pink.

Izaya curls tighter into himself, then forces his limbs to loosen. He’s always been good at putting on a show, but it’s never been this hard. He turns his shoulders, his attention, towards Shizuo. He moves slowly and deliberately. At least it’s easy to tell himself that the gentle upturn of his lips is natural. “I didn’t realize you had an interest in men,” He purrs. He can only crawl right now, but he manages to smooth his movement and somewhat gracefully sidles up next to Shizuo. 

Shizuo bodily flinches back when Izaya places a hand on his knee. The skin contact is shockingly warm. There’s nausea building in his stomach, but he has to try harder. He can’t lose Shizuo. He can’t be left here alone.

He grabs Shizuo’s shoulder and pulls himself close to Shizuo’s face. “Especially not an interest in _me_ ,” he breathes, casting his vision down to make his lashes flutter. 

“What are you-- _doing_ ,” Shizuo gasps. His whole body shudders underneath Izaya’s. He’s clearly responding, shifting uncomfortably so that his legs hide his crotch. 

Izaya’s head is light. The warm water pouring over both of them is messing with his senses, and he has to fight the impulse to cover himself. He hadn’t thought he could feel vulnerable like this anymore. It forms knots all along his spine, clogs up his throat. He wants, badly, to push Shizuo away, so he grips his shoulder tighter and presses his chest closer, his lower half shifting away so that Shizuo won’t notice that he’s not quite as aroused as Shizuo is. 

“Izaya,” Shizuo breathes, and Izaya ghosts his lips along Shizuo’s jaw. He’s good at this, he knows how this is supposed to work. Every hitch in Shizuo’s breath is a win.

It’s with an empty detachment that he presses his lips to Shizuo’s. This, he’s not sure if he’s doing right. It’s supposed to feel good, right? But it’s just skin on skin, and he feels nothing but a quick, gasping feeling like he’s not really getting enough air. 

Shizuo seems to be enjoying it, at least, and he pulls away slightly to nip gently at Izaya’s lower lip. This gives him some air, and is significantly less uncomfortable. It’s nice, even, and he feels some premonition of heat starting in his belly and working its’ way down, relaxing some of his tense muscles. 

Shizuo’s hands start to roam, along his shoulders and down his back. It’s a comfort, but also too close. He’s slipping further into his senses, losing himself to the thousands of droplets hitting every inch of exposed skin. He shoves it away, focusing on lips instead, on the trail of heat Shizuo’s hands leave. Ignore it, _ignore it_. This is what Shizuo wants. 

His nausea skyrockets when Shizuo’s hands wander down to his butt. 

“Izaya-- You’re shaking,” Shizuo says, and his hands are gone now, replaced on his shoulders and pushing him away slightly. “Are you okay?”

It’s too much. His skin is alight with so much sensation that it’s overwhelming. He wants this, he even felt himself starting to become okay with it, but he’s been broken beyond repair and he can’t even give what he has left to Shizuo. He had failed to notice the tears sliding down his face until now because of the sensory mass that the water has become against his skin.

Shizuo lightly pushes him to sit on the tile and guides him to rest his head into the crook of his collar bone. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to do anything. It’s okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prison experiment that Izaya mentions is a real occurrence called the Stanford Prison Experiment. It is often given as an example of psychology experiments going too far and not considering the well being of the participants. If you'd like to know more, here's a site that explains it really well --> http://www.simplypsychology.org/zimbardo.html


	29. Neurotoxin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaAAAAAHHHHHHHHhhhhhhh this took me a long time AGAIN because I got really frustrated with this chapter and wasn't sure if it disrupted the flow/didn't contribute to plot/even worked. I sat on it for a long time and then had my beta look at it, then finally decided to post it. So thank you very much, my beautiful Artist.  
> Hopefully there's still people here AGAIN.

Shizuo sits with Izaya until he can breathe normally again. Shizuo had turned the water off earlier at Izaya’s barely audible request and now the cold seeps into his still moist skin. Neither speaks when Izaya stands on trembling legs and carefully makes his way to the lockers to dress himself.

Shizuo nearly flinches when Izaya glances back at him, the panic and hurt still visible in his eyes even with the gesture cut short. Shame clenches at his gut for having been caught staring, and he twists away to turn the water back on. 

He scrubs at his skin until it feels like he's scraping it off layer by layer. He strips the soaked bandages from his legs, vaguely irritated that he hadn't been allowed to dress his wounds appropriately for a shower. It’s just another addition to the mountain of cruelty done to him. His monster body should keep him from getting an infection, at least. The once clinically white washcloth is now a disgusting mix of browns and reds, his skin pink and raw, but he still feels dirty. Like sludge creeps between his fingers and filth sinks into the flesh he used to take advantage of Izaya in the worst way possible. 

He thought that he'd finally been able to protect Izaya, but his damnable monster hands had only hurt Izaya more. 

He can still feel how soft and warm Izaya had been against his palms, his chest, his lips. Heat had coiled low in his body until he noticed Izaya shaking. His stomach turns at the remembered shock of the moment. He should have known. He has such little control that he practically forced himself on Izaya. His hands are toxic; Shingen made damn sure that his body would only ever be for destruction and taking. 

Shizuo finishes his shower and steps toward Izaya, who is sitting, clothed, on one of the benches. He quickly dresses and grabs the new gauze that Akabayashi had brought in at some point, then settles down on the floor at the opposite side of the room to rebandage his aching, bloody legs. He hopes it’s enough space. He’s sure Izaya wants to be nowhere near his poison right now. 

Izaya is still faintly shivering, even with multiple towels wrapped around his shoulders. His eyes are downcast, his lids heavy. Without the blood and grime covering his skin, shizuo can see that bruises have darkened along his jaw, his throat, his arms- He looks so tired. The burn that crawls down his left shoulder and arm is red and inflamed. 

“The scars on my head are from when Kujiragi performed brain surgery on me.” 

Silence has formed around them like thick cotton (like a living thing that claws at his throat every time he thinks to speak) and it takes Shizuo a moment to even register that the tension has suddenly twisted to nonexistence with the presence of Izaya’s quiet, falsely impassive voice. It takes him another moment to realize that Izaya is addressing him, and yet another to actually hear the words. 

“Izaya… You don’t have to tell me this.” He’s at a complete loss. He remembers asking Izaya about the scars that night in the bathroom. Does Izaya think that he left because Izaya refused to tell him? 

He wants Izaya to tell him about his scars, yes, but not because of some weird, half-invested curiosity. It’s not the scars themselves or the no doubt cruel experiment behind them that gives him pause; it’s the emotional toll that has so obviously lingered. He wants Izaya to trust him enough to share something that still hurts him, to alleviate some of the pressure of secrecy. 

But what’s happening now isn’t trust, it’s desperation. He can’t understand why Izaya is this breathless mess right now or why he’s trying so hard to give things to Shizuo that he doesn’t actually want to give. Shizuo’s ugly hands just take and take and take, and he can’t keep Izaya from them. 

“She was doing what’s called brain mapping.” Izaya continues, refusing to acknowledge that Shizuo spoke, possibly refusing to acknowledge that Shizuo is here at all. Izaya finally looks at him, glares at him, maroon eyes full of such seething hatred that he’s not entirely sure who it’s directed at; Kujiragi, him, or even Izaya himself. “I was sedated but conscious while she cut open my skull and poked around as her assistant asked me questions. My answers determined what section of my brain she was currently in, what processes were involved in that particular hunk of tissue.” 

It’s absolutely _horrific_. He’d never been awake for any of Shingen’s surgeries, and he’d never thought to be grateful for that. It’s invasive and terrifying enough to just wake to pain and confusion and strange changes to your body, but a whole other thing to actually witness the process behind it. He doesn’t want to imagine it, and that leads exactly to the image of Izaya strapped down, his scalp discarded to the side as Kujiragi’s hands delve into his head. He knows it would have been clean and logically surgical but he can’t stop seeing blood everywhere and pink tissue mush sloshing onto a metal table.

Shizuo doesn’t want to know this, because Izaya’s lips are turning up in a smile that holds only suffering. This isn’t helping him; it’s probably only traumatizing him more. Shizuo wants Izaya to stop but he just keeps talking, voice turning from passive to almost mocking, challenging, like Shizuo is stupid for being horrified. “She never explained to me what was happening, just sliced right into my head. I only found out from Shinra later.” 

_This has to stop_. “Why do you keep forcing yourself to--”

The door to the bathroom slams, and Shizuo jerks at the noise but Izaya is still glaring at him. 

It’s Shiki, who looks like he knows that he’s interrupted something but doesn’t have the time to care. He presses a small metal device into Izaya’s hands and helps him to his feet. “We have to get you two back now before the other guards come snooping.”

He pivots and heads out. Izaya turns to follow him but Shizuo grabs his wrist-- even though he knows he shouldn’t be touching Izaya at all-- because they can’t let things fester like this. From one thing to the next he’s hurt Izaya, by forcing himself on him and now that painful confession ripped from between his teeth. There has been no physical coercion, but somehow he’s managed to accomplish emotional manipulation without even trying. Shizuo’s never had that kind of power before. Izaya’s mind is as vulnerable to him as someone else’s bones. 

“Izaya--” He says. He has to make it right, _somehow_. He has to fix this.

“No,” Izaya cuts him off. A glare and a few stiff, careful steps and Izaya is gone. Shizuo’s hand is out stretched and empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you super super much for sticking with me, love you


	30. Count to Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. It's been quite a long time. I'm tremendously grateful to everyone that is still here. I sort of got absolutely _obsessed_ with a new fandom, one that took over my every waking (and dreaming) thought for quite a while. I promised myself I couldn't start any other fics until I finish this one though. I'm almost done, and I'm motivated, so expect this to hopefully be wrapped up soon. But when this does finish, if you like ffxv, look for me there  <3
> 
> Back to the pain and suffering!!! There's quite a bit of dissociation in this chapter, if anyone doesn't like reading that.

Seeing the horror on Shizuo’s face is simultaneously relieving and infuriating. Izaya’s arms are still tingling, tensing like he’s anticipating pain. The healed skin along his scalp itches. 

Everything that happened in that bathroom, it didn’t. He did not just share with fucking _Shizuo_ how Kujiragi sliced into his head and ruined him. He can't stop seeing Shizuo’s face -- eyes wide, _pitying_ \-- and he yearns, viscerally, to take the scalpel from his memory and stab Shizuo’s goddamn eyes out, anything to make him stop _looking_ at him like that.

His head is full of knives and all that matters now is that he follows through on his plans. Shiki escorts them back to the room full of subjects, and Izaya struggles to keep his step slow and steady instead of quick and eager. When he stops in front of Mikado and Kida, the boys stand to greet him. 

“Mikado-kun, I have it for you,” He says, and it’s easy as breathing to speak with the usual lilt to his voice once his brain smothers the background noise of sharp tools being placed on trays while soft leather is stretched across his wrists.

Kida looks ecstatic but Mikado just stares at Izaya with a gentle frown. 

It’s what he’s been waiting for since Aoba injected spite into his veins and Ran forced piercing, overwhelming malice into his ears. What he planned when Kida asked him to leave his best friend alone while clutching the stump where his arm used to be. 

But he’s full of only sharp things and poison when he hands the phone to Mikado, and the teenager grasps it gingerly like it might bite him. Izaya can see the decision he’s been waiting for in his eyes. 

“Masaomi-kun…” Mikado says, a small, almost embarrassed smile at his lips. “I’m not going to break into Namie-san’s office.” 

It’s exactly what Izaya wanted but that overwhelming excitement he thrives on is absent. 

Kida is, unsurprisingly, taken aback. “What? What do you mean? We have to trade this information so that we can escape with Anri-chan, Mikado.”

Mikado hands the phone back to Izaya with a soft apology. He turns back to his friend. “I don’t want to escape, Masaomi-kun.”

Izaya watches Kida’s face for the exact moment when he finally understands what Mikado is saying. Disbelief turns to pain and betrayal, and then a flash of hatred aimed at Izaya. 

Izaya starts to laugh because that’s what he’s supposed to be doing. This is supposed to be _exhilarating_. Mikado sent people to torture him, so Izaya is showing Kida exactly what Mikado’s true nature is. Kida’s face is the kind of devastation he should relish.

But all he can feel is Kujiragi hovering above his open scalp as her blank faced assistant asks him redundant questions. _What are these shapes? Can you count to ten?_

There’s a hand at his shoulder, the non-burned one, and a harsh, disgusted noise in his ear. Shizuo drags him off, away from the two arguing teens. At least, Kida is arguing while Mikado pretends to be apologetic. 

There’s really nowhere private they can go in the small, crowded room, so Shizuo doesn’t take him far. Just enough to be out of Kida and Mikado’s business and away from the guards posted at the exit. Shizuo runs his hands through his own hair, tugging on it harshly. His scowl is impressive in it’s intensity.

He chews on his words before they escape between his teeth. “What the _fuck_ are you doing, Izaya?”

Something heavy creeps down the notches in his spine. He can’t twist to scrape whatever it is from his back, because his hands are strapped to a chair. _Stop, stop. Focus._ “You’ve met Celty, haven’t you?” He says, wringing his hands together to prove that he has control of them. “I’ve been in contact with her, and she wants to help us.” He ~~hates~~ is indifferent to the fact that by involving Celty, by telling her what her beloved is doing, he is betraying Shinra.

Shizuo is just glaring, so Izaya continues. “She can’t get us all out by herself because of the collars, so I made a deal with Shiki-san to help her help us in exchange for information. Mikado-kun was going to steal documents from Namie-san to give to Shiki-san.”

“Yeah, that’s your bullshit surface plan. But you knew that kid doesn’t want to leave here-- god, what the hell kind of person--” Shizuo cuts himself off and scrubs a palm down his face. 

Shizuo’s perceptiveness really shouldn’t surprise Izaya anymore, but it does. He doesn’t know how to respond because he’s so far beyond damaged that he can no longer fill himself with the expressions of others. 

Shizuo continues before Izaya can even collect some kind-- _any_ kind of sentence together. Shizuo’s clenched fists are shaking, his eyebrows drawn in anger. It’s been awhile since Izaya has seen this rage directed towards himself. “I don’t understand you, Izaya! You were just doing everything you thought I wanted, for some fucking reason, and then you pull this shit? You said it was a plan to get out, but you knew this would happen. Do you want to stay in this place, like that messed up kid? Do you actually even want me around? I don’t _get_ you.”

This is it. This is why he can’t enjoy getting back at Mikado. Because this is how he loses Shizuo. He tried again and again to keep him, offering his body, his secrets; but he failed. 

He carefully hadn’t considered the reality of actually escaping. He encouraged others to hope for it, to try for it, but skirted around the subject in regards to himself. Wanting to leave would be admitting that this facility and its’ inhabitants have harmed him. That his head is, in fact, full of knives. 

_Count to ten._

He’s not sure he could function in the real world, with what Kujiragi has done to him. Shizuo assured him that Kujiragi did not alter his behavior, but she’s still rooting around in his head. 

Shizuo is going to escape. He already doesn’t have a collar. If Izaya doesn’t do his part in an escape plan, he will be left here. Kujiragi will continue to leave scalpels in his head. 

He’s counting, _one, two, three…_ until suddenly the numbers escape him. He’s scrambling, he knows what comes next, but he can’t find it. It’s terrifying. 

What if kujiragi pokes just slightly too hard, and then he can never again count past three, or remember how to eat, or what his own name is?

He doesn’t even need Mikado, or Kida. He could have set things in motion himself at anytime, if he wasn’t a coward. He just has to get Shiki’s desired information himself.

“I’ll fix it,” Izaya says, instead of _please don’t leave me here_. Shizuo stares at him for a moment, shocked out of his anger, but Izaya walks away before he can respond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, tremendous thanks to my beta reader, artist, and best friend.


	31. Lurking Malice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahaha this took a long time again but home stretch!!!! OTL
> 
> It's short but it's gearing up for some... fun. Lots of fun.

Shinra had given Izaya access to the offices so that he’d stop whining about having to wait for pain medication, so getting into Shingen’s spacious office is easy. Although maybe spacious isn’t quite the right word. Documents overflow the filing cabinets and are piled atop every available surface. Even the floor is covered, aside from an obvious path leading to the swivel chair behind the large metal desk. 

Shiki had explained that guards couldn’t enter the offices without special clearance, for security reasons. He’s lucky the guards didn’t revoke his permissions when they caught him snooping for medication. 

He pauses in front of the desk. It’s too late to second-guess now. Shizuo will hate him if he doesn’t do this. They can’t continue on in this facility after all that has happened. 

Izaya settles into the chair behind the desk. It’s large, and perhaps the most comfortable furniture he’s sat on after years of so many thin cots and metal tables. He allows himself to melt into the chair for just a second, primarily because he cannot physically stop himself, then focuses on the large computer monitor nearly swamped by precariously piled documents.

He resists the urge to swipe the papers aside. He wouldn’t put it past Shingen to notice the tiniest thing out of place, even with this place such an explosive mess. He’s positive the physical papers aren’t important anyway-- just some bizarre habit, perhaps. Everything he needs is locked away electronically. 

The computer isn’t even password protected, and when he taps the mouse he’s suddenly met with a giant background of Shinra’s grinning face. His arms are elbow deep in _something_ , covered in blood. He’d take it as some sort of sign of affection that Shingen has his son as his computer background but it’s just… creepy. 

He quickly navigates to the files section. Since he’s the lead scientist, Shingen has access to the files on every subject and, ah, here’s his personal subjects. It’s so tempting to look through Shizuo’s file, but he doesn’t have the time. 

He’s a coward, but he’s going to fix this. For Shizuo. What the fuck is wrong with him. 

He finds the files he’s looking for. They’re clearly labeled, sitting neat and pretty with everything else. No passwords, no protections… it’s concerning.

There’s even a video feed. Izaya clicks into it briefly just for more confirmation-- like he even needs it, with all these documents. There on the screen, grainy and bleached of color, is the little girl the awakusu-kai are looking for. She’s tiny, curled up on a cot, with her face hidden under her dark hair. Why Shingen decided to kidnap the daughter of a _mafia boss_ , he can’t fathom. But it will be his undoing. 

Izaya plugs his phone into the computer with the cord Shiki gave him. Now that it’s confirmed the Awakusu’s target is here, they’ll agree to help Celty, and all of them will work to take down the facility together. 

This wretched facility, and its staff. Which includes Kujiragi, and Shingen… but also Shinra. 

So he does something stupid, that takes up more time. He finds every single file related to Shinra and deletes it. Shingen already has a program that will hard wipe information, something definitely for security to make sure no trace can be found of incriminating evidence. It’s intended for exactly the situation that Izaya is going to force Shingen into. So he takes the time to use it for the bastard’s son, and his only friend.

His phone vibrates with a call from Shiki. Once. Twice. Then the call is ended. 

Shit. Someone’s coming. 

The extra time was a mistake, but he can’t regret it. Not for Shinra. 

He pulls his phone out, quickly but carefully enough to not cause noise. There’s a small walk-in closet off to the side of the office, which is, of course, stuffed near to bursting with boxes of documents, but he can see just barely enough space for someone desperate and skinny enough to squeeze in. 

He jams himself inside and has just quieted his harsh breathing as he hears the door to the office near silently slide open. His burned arm is caught awkwardly between two boxes, which hurts, but his spiked adrenaline dulls it. 

Who else has access to Shingen’s office? All the staff are off gallivanting on Shingen’s bizarre vacation. Security guards don’t have access. No other subjects have access, unless Shinra was stupid enough to hand out _more_ codes. 

He tries to press further back into the closet, but he’s stopped by the boxes at his back. He hears quiet, steady footfalls making their way towards the desk-- but then there’s a pause, and the steps are heading back, closer to his hiding spot. 

If he’s caught, he’ll most definitely die. Depending on who it is, that death will be short and quick, or slow and painful. He’s sweating, and his eyes unfocus, and then he blinks and he’s caught back in that damnable isolation cell, left behind to have his rib cage opened and looked through, his scalp sliced-- stop. Stop, stop, stop. He covers his mouth with his hands to suppress what is no doubt too loud breathing. His damn traitor brain has to choose now to have a break down. 

The person is right outside the closet door. How do they know? His breathing? His goddamn _panicking_ is going to get him killed. He used to be so much better than this, separate from the other subjects that would writhe and scream and be useless. He’s been ruined, and this is just the last thread before he’s thrown into the empty chasm that is his psyche. 

The door opens, almost casually, and he’s greeted by the sight of a gas mask. 

Izaya has only felt this small under Kujiragi’s impassive gaze. There’s malevolent intent in the way that Shingen towers over him; something that Izaya has never felt around Shingen before. Promises of cruelty, of needles and knives sliding slowly through skin and tendons and bones hover just behind his shoulders, creeping through the shadow his frame casts over Izaya. It sets off his instinct to _run, escape,_ something that Izaya learned to suppress long ago because it clouded his thoughts. But it’s overwhelming now, the noise in his head,and all he can think is that there is _danger_ in front of him and he has to _get away._

“Now why on earth are you in _here_ , 311?” Shingen asks him in his usual, uneven lilt. 

Something under so much pressure in Izaya’s brain must finally snap, because at Shingen’s voice, his mind goes blissfully quiet.

He’s never been completely helpless, and he isn’t now. He _isn’t_. He has his own weapons, carefully, meticulously crafted specifically for his own survival. He is inherently selfish, he knows, and so he will do whatever it takes to keep himself intact. Even if means running himself through on Shingen’s knife. 

So he swallows his terror and says in a steady voice, “Of course you choose now to come back, Shingen-san.”

Somehow, he gets the feeling that Shingen is smiling under his mask. “Why, I’ve been here the whole time, _Izaya-kun_.”


	32. I Will Burn First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks, been a while. Still working on this ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Very close to the end here. I want to say the next chapters will come out quicker, but that always seems to be a lie OTL
> 
> (also I'm happy I got to sneak a tiny bit of chikage/kadota in here ehehhh)

Izaya blindly presses the send button on his phone, hiding it from sight behind his back. When Shingen looks away to call over some security guards he wedges the phone between two of the boxes behind him. He moves as little as possible and Shingen doesn’t seem to notice as the guards reach into the closet to roughly pull him out.  

His part is done now. Shizuo-- and less importantly, everyone else-- will be able to escape. Whatever happens to him from now on doesn’t matter.

Izaya is handcuffed and lead to a part of the facility he’s never been to before. Shingen strides ahead of him as though he doesn’t have a single care in all the world. The guards march stiffly at Izaya’s shoulders, practically breathing down his neck. As if he’d be able to run even if he wanted to. A press of a button and he’d be convulsing on the floor. He’d pick a myriad of other tortures over being electrocuted again.

They take him to a room that looks like a lab. Equipment that Izaya has grown familiar with over the years line the walls, a silver table rests in the middle, and cages are pushed up against the back wall. Kadota is in one of the cages, leaning against the bars, looking exhausted and ill. Chikage is sitting on the table and Shinra stands in front of him, wrapping bandages around one of his hands.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding, Shinra?” Izaya says, his smile on the edge of being real because it feels as though he hasn’t seen Shinra in months. One of the guards pushes him into the room, so he uses the momentum to step towards the doctor. His friend, the person who watched behind camera feeds while Izaya had to fend for himself. It’s what Shinra has always done, so Izaya can’t bring himself to really be bothered. He doesn’t regret deleting Shinra’s files, even if he got caught because of it.

Chikage peers at him curiously, but Shinra doesn’t look up from his work. Understandable, given that Chikage’s hands are a bit of a wreck, to put it politely. The hand Shinra is attending to is cleaned and halfway bandaged, but Chikage’s other hand shows the full extent of the damage. His fingers are bloody, bent in all sorts of wrong directions, with sharp little bits of yellow bone tearing through the skin here and there. He doesn’t flinch as Shinra manipulates his fingers back into their proper place, so he must have been given an anesthetic. Lucky him.

When Shinra finally looks up, he frowns at Izaya. “You’re a mess,” he announces.

“Well,” Izaya says with a careless wave of a cuffed hand,  “My personal doctor has been away, and I’ve been beaten and shot at, so you’ll have to give me a bit of leeway here.” He’s careful not to move his burned arm, it’s been throbbing since he threw himself into Shingen’s closet.

Shinra smiles at him knowingly, then goes back to his work on Chikage’s hands. “Mmm,”  He says, “Wasn’t it Shizuo that was shot at?”

“Close enough,” Izaya counters, but now he’s worrying over exactly how much Shinra watched through those cameras. In his mind he sees himself on a tiny security monitor, cold and dripping and cowering, desperately offering himself to Shizuo and being refused.

Shingen slaps his hand down on Izaya’s bad shoulder, and it takes a surprising amount of willpower to bite back the pained noise that tries to startle out of his throat, especially now that he’s been snapped out of his distraction.

“Patch  up 311, please, Shinra,” Shingen says. He steps up to Shinra and his patient, and lifts Chikage’s hands to examine them. This is the first time Chikage’s expression has changed; turned sour, almost a snarl, but he doesn’t resist Shingen’s hold.

Shingen tuts like he’s disappointed in a child’s petulance, allowing Chikage to retract his hands back. “Don’t give me that face, 184. You and 105 started a riot! If I let you waltz off, all the other subjects will think they can do the same thing.”

Chikage’s frown turns almost feral, and he snickers. “Then why haven’t you just killed me and Kadota?”

Shingen jerks back dramatically as though he’s horrified by the mere notion. “Kujiragi-san and Namie-san would be quite upset with me if I disposed of your still useful bodies!”

Kadota just sighs from his cage. “Yeah, that figures.”

Kadota kind of looks like he’s dying. He probably isn’t, given what Shingen just said, but his complexion is ashen. He leans into the bars of his cage like he’s trying to melt through them, and has an IV going into the soft skin of his wrist. Whatever drug treatment he’s getting, it clearly isn’t doing him any good. Izaya knows quite intimately how painful and exhausting that can be. Although he’s not sure if he would pick chemicals in his bloodstream or thoroughly broken hands, if given the choice.

Kadota’s eyes, sunken and bruised looking, tiredly shift to regard Izaya. His eyebrows turn crinkled and his mouth tips down in worry. “Why are you here, Izaya?”

Something unnamable twinges in Izaya’s chest. He wants to help Kadota, and he’s not sure why. Kadota’s never really done much for him, aside from friendly conversation and tolerating his eccentricities.

Izaya made sure that Shizuo can escape. He can’t fathom why, but… Shizuo won’t leave him here. Nothing can hurt him anymore.

“I was the one who planned the escape attempt,” Izaya says, feeling his lips lift into that easy smile.

The room is silent, and all eyes skid directly to land on him. 

“Izaya…? What?” Kadota says.

Izaya just gives him a helpless shrug, and Shingen is watching him

“Shinra, please release 184 and 105. They’ve been punished enough and can go join the other subjects again. And please go fetch Kujiragi while you’re out, I’m sure she’ll want some last notes on her subject.”

\--

Something is wrong. Shizuo knows that something is wrong. Where is Izaya? How the hell is he “fixing it”? What is he even fixing?! Their scattered, undefinable relationship? His fucked up personality? Something is so clearly _wrong_ that Shizuo feels fucking sick to his stomach.

The three kids to his left are arguing quietly. They have been since Izaya pulled that stupid stunt with the phone that Shizuo still doesn’t entirely understand. Izaya was trying to exchange information to get… something… from those yakuza guys. He thinks. Doesn’t matter anyway, because all Izaya cared about was fucking with the kids and potentially ruining their friendship.

Which is so fucked up. The only joy Shizuo has been able to get out of this place came from his friendships, and to want to ruin something like that…

So then what is Izaya doing? He said he’d fix it, but does that ridiculous little sociopath even understand what the problem is? Dammit, he’s going in circles again.

The quiet rumble of hushed conversation dies when the door opens. It has an awful, grating noise when it’s opened too fast, which the guards always seem to do on purpose. The small crowd of subjects immediately perks up in mumbled surprise as Kadota and Chikage are shoved into the room. Kida and Mikado actually stand up, clear relief on their faces.

Once inside, the guards kick Kadota and Chikage to the ground and the shorter one spits on them.

“You’re lucky you weren’t dissected for pulling that stupid stunt, worthless _material,”_ she hisses.

“C’mon, whatever.” The other guard tries to steer his partner back out the door. “Let’s just go get lunch.”

“They killed Hei,” she snarls. “I can’t fucking believe this. That other one better get the punishment they all deserve.” The guard kicks viciously at Kadota, and Shizuo tenses, anger spiking his adrenaline, but Chikage jerks forward to take the hit instead. The guard sneers and finally turns to leave.

As soon as the door squeaks closed Kadota and Chikage are practically swarmed by concerned subjects. Shizuo approaches but stays back; they’ve got enough people fussing over them. He just wants to make sure Kadota and even that weird Chikage guy are okay.

“We’ll survive,” Chikage is saying to the worried group. He’s got an arm wrapped around Kadota, it looks like he’s almost fully supporting his weight. “They just gave Kadota something that’s made him sick the past couple days, he should be okay with some rest.”

“Fuck, Rocchi, your hands!” someone exclaims. There are other gasps and cries as Kida carefully examines Chikage’s heavily bandaged hands.

“Where’s Shizuo?” Kadota interrupts, and everyone goes silent. Suddenly there are about two dozen pairs of eyes fixed on him. Kadota follows their line of sight and then, with Chikage’s help,  hobbles up to where Shizuo stands.

Kadota looks like death, and his voice is scratchy; dry or unused or possibly used too much. He’d probably collapse if Chikage wasn’t keeping him upright.

“Izaya’s in trouble.” _Fuck_. He _knew_ something was wrong. “He took our place as the ringleader of the escape attempt. He didn’t even have anything to do with it.”

That sense of wrongness slots into a place in his chest, validated and demanding immediate action.

“Shingen mangled Chikage’s hands,” Kadota continues.Chikage is frowning, but he mostly seems to be worrying over Kadota rather than his own injuries. “Shinra said he might never have full use of them again. And Shingen called that a _light_ punishment. He’s going to do something horrible to Izaya.”

Since fucking when does Izaya getting himself killed mean _fixing things_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for Get Rekt Izaya part 3 ( ͡° ͜ ʖ ͡° )


	33. Atypical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long I hope the wait is worth it!!! Many, many thanks to my wonderful beta for wrangling this into shape!!
> 
> This is the chapter where the warnings... uh, very much come in to play.
> 
> .... Have fun

Izaya is strapped to a table. The cold metal is such a shock to his skin it almost hurts. There are lights, bright and white, exposing his vulnerable body. They sting his eyes so that the people moving around him and touching him turn into blurred shapes and glints of colors. His chest is tight, so tight. 

He wants to see Shizuo. As absurd as it is, the thought calms him, and he tries to let himself breathe. Shizuo won’t leave him. He had come back before, when Izaya was broken and alone.

A hand runs along his left arm and he can’t suppress a full body shiver. Something cold and small is being attached to his skin; along his forehead, his neck, his chest.

Maybe Shizuo won’t come back. He _should_ leave Izaya here. What has he done for Shizuo aside from stealing some medication? He’s only ever made him angry. 

He thinks about that stupid book on plants he read to Shizuo, such a long time ago. He was a different person then. Less… volatile. At the time, he’d read it so that he could feel superior to Shizuo. So he could rub it in shizuo’s face how much smarter he was. But Shizuo hadn’t reacted how he’d expected. He hadn’t raged or thrown things at him. Perhaps it was because he’d been in too much pain from Shingen’s experiments that day, but Shizuo had just laid there and listened to him. He had watched Izaya read with this weird _expression_ and asked him to explain things that he didn’t understand. 

Shizuo, the stupid _protozoan,_ was right. He doesn’t want to go back to when they hated each other. But he doesn’t want to be like this, either. Broken, emotional, _human._

Strapped to a table. Examined and cut into like he _isn’t_ human. 

Shingen is talking, but he hasn’t been listening. His own breathing is too loud in his ears; the sound of leather restraints shifting as he tries to move is amplified over everything else. 

Kujiragi must have entered the room at some point, because she’s standing next to him now. She runs her fingers along his exposed arm. Her face is impassive as always, and her blunt voice slowly filters through his panic like the air is too thick for it to cut through clearly. “His body won’t be as useful to me without active brain waves.”

“Yes, yes, but this was his last chance. We will record as much as possible with this dissection. We will be careful.”

He’s terrified, and cold, and breathing too fast. He saved Shinra, he saved Kadota, he saved Shizuo. _He saved Shizuo, he saved Shizuo, he saved Shizuo._ This is what he wanted. But he doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to be mercilessly and clinically sliced open. He doesn’t want this _pain._

Shizuo will save him. Shizuo will save him. Shizuo… won’t come back. Shizuo will leave.

~

Shinra is torn.

Izaya is clearly trying to keep it together, but his composure is crumbling as Father and Kujiragi set up equipment and put on surgical scrubs. His assistant is attaching monitors to Izaya’s skin and recording his baseline vitals.

Shinra hasn’t seen Izaya this afraid since Kujiragi performed brain surgery on him. Izaya had been completely despondent after the procedure. A husk, a shell, accepting Kujiragi’s tests and medications and not responding verbally to anyone. Shinra had put him on stimulants and antidepressants but nothing changed. Eventually, soon after Izaya’s hair had fully grown back, Kadota started talking to him. And every once in a while, Izaya would talk back. Then Izaya met Shizuo, and the spark was back in his eyes. 

Shinra had asked his father to put Shizuo into his care, in the hopes that Izaya would continue to improve. 

He understands the concept, but not really the feeling, of having friends. He sought them out because Celty wanted him to, but he knows that he’d also drop them in a heartbeat for Celty. He’d do anything for her.

So what would she want in this situation? He hasn’t been able to talk to her much since his father decided to withdraw his scientist team in order to ‘see what the subjects would do’. Shinra thought the results were obvious. Of course they would try to escape. He didn’t need a simulated experiment to determine such an outcome. 

Izaya is staring up at the ceiling. His eyes are unseeing, and his body is trembling. His arms strain against the restraints keeping him firmly to the operating table. 

Celty knew Izaya. He’d snuck into Shinra’s office once while she was visiting. Most of the time Shinra was able to carefully limit Celty’s exposure to anything in the labs, and she usually went along with it out of a distaste for most things medical research inclined. She hadn’t seemed to like Izaya much when she met him, but she’s a kind soul. She wouldn’t want anyone to hurt, even Izaya. It’s part of why he loves her so much. 

She may not have liked Izaya, but Celty did like Shizuo. Shinra had freaked out, kind of a lot, when the two accidentally met. He figured Izaya wouldn’t say anything about the whole forced experimental subject thing, but he there was a pretty big chance that Shizuo would. He hadn’t, though; perhaps because he thought she already knew. Whatever the case, they talked about benign things, and seemed to get along rather well, all things considered. Celty enjoyed his company so much that Shinra even started organizing meetings for them. It was harmless, and whatever made Celty happy made Shinra happy. 

She wouldn’t be happy if she found out what he’s been doing for his father all this time. She might even hate him. He’d prefer it if she didn’t, but he could find a way to fix it if he had to.

Izaya and Shizuo had something going on, that much was clear. Shinra had watched far too many hours of camera footage during their ‘vacation’. He had seen how Shizuo and Izaya started sleeping in the same bed. Watched a quick, confused kiss after Shizuo had been shot. Their fumbling and awkward _interaction_ in the bathroom. These poor bastards don’t know what to do with each other.

Izaya flinches everytime Father or Kujiragi touch him. Shinra is only here to monitor his life signs and assist his father in recording information. The others pay him no mind as they set up a row of sterilized scalpels and forceps. 

Shinra places a hand on Izaya’s wrist to help calm him. He flinches, but when Shinra doesn’t move away, Izaya finally glances down to see who is touching him. Their eyes meet, and again, Shinra is torn.

He knows that Celty would want him to help Izaya. He always knows exactly what Celty would want him to do. Would it help Celty, though? Or would it help his relationship with Celty?

Izaya was a good choice for a friend. He never expected Shinra to actually act like a friend. Izaya is smart, he knows that Shinra cares about Celty above all else. When Shinra can’t have Celty, Izaya is a fun way to fill the void. The trouble he leaves in his wake is amusing to watch. 

He remembers the surprising anger he felt when he treated Izaya’s chemical burn. If the sulfuric acid had gotten into his airways, or if it had eaten through the skin of his throat, Izaya could have died. 

Does Celty care if Izaya dies? Does _Shinra_ care if Izaya dies?

Father has picked up a scalpel and is slicing a line across Izaya’s stomach. Is he doing a Y cut? Already? This will be a quick dissection if he’s starting with that. 

Kujiragi is at the front of the operating table. Blood is sliding down Izaya’s forehead and into his ear from where Kujiragi is cutting. She’s already going to open his scalp, that’s unusually soon. And without shaving his head? Shinra was under the impression that they were planning on taking this slow, to gather as much information as possible before the subject was rendered useless from trauma. 

Izaya whimpers, and it’s a strangled sound. He’s trying very hard to not make noise. His eyes are shut tight, but there are tears escaping the lids and joining the blood trailing down his face. His chest is heaving where Father carefully drags the scalpel, his hands claw at the table underneath him.

This dissection isn’t normal. It’s almost like his father is ignoring protocol in order to make this experience as horrific for Izaya as possible. Stranger still that straight-laced Kujiragi is going along with it.

Father isn’t sadistic. He performs under the goal of information above all else. Electing to not give Izaya sedatives, not washing or shaving him properly in preparation for surgery, even the metal table with no cushions or heated blankets all have a point. He doesn’t plan on killing Izaya. Just his will to attempt another escape. 

Father’s hand slips between the open fold of Izaya’s abdominal skin. Izaya convulses, his heart rate is skyrocketing, but he isn't making any sound now. 

Shinra knows that Izaya will soon reach the point where he completely shuts down. Anything to escape the terror of being dissected alive. Shinra has never found blood and viscera hard to watch, but he’s struggling to keep his eyes on the suffering so clear in Izaya’s face.

There’s strange noise outside of the door, and Father pauses. The sound coalesces into screaming and slamming, and then the metal door is being bent and warped.

“ _Where’s Izaya_!” Shizuo roars, forcing his way past the hard steel that he’s manipulating with his bare hands, a monster of Shingen’s own making. 

The two guards stationed in the room raise their tranquilizer guns at Shizuo while more guards line up outside the mangled door. He shoves them aside like they’re no more than irritating obstacles. There’s not nearly enough sedative in a normal round of tranquilizer dart to take Shizuo down, Shinra knows. It will take at least five darts, and with Shizuo in such a rage, most likely more. The guards can’t reload fast enough before the beast is upon them and slamming them into the nearest surface.

One of the monitors beeps, signifying that Izaya’s heart rate has spiked dangerously, and Shinra turns in time to watch his father carefully remove his hand from Izaya’s abdomen. He discards his bloodied gloves with an unhurried air and heads for the door at the back of the room. Kujiragi seems concerned, the most ruffled Shinra has ever seen her, and she follows after Shingen without a backward glance.

“This way, Shinra,” his father says, carelessly waving his hand towards the door. 

Shinra turns to follow, but he is torn.

Izaya’s chest is still heaving, blood overflowing from the incision on his stomach with each exhale. His face is a mess of red; head wounds always bleed so much. His heart rate is too high, and his vitals are dropping. He might be too overwhelmed to even realize that his torturers have left.

His relationship with Izaya will never be normal, but at some point it seems to have evolved past a simple desire to please Celty.

“Sorry, Tou-san,” Shinra says. “I’ll catch up with you later.”


End file.
